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THE STORY OF TEXTILES 



THE 

STORY OF TEXTILES 

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE HISTORY 

OF THE BEGINNING AND THE 

GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRY 

BY WHICH MANKIND 

IS CLOTHED 



BY 

PERRY WALTON 




COMPILED AND WRITTEN FOR 

JOHN S. LAWRENCE 

BOSTON, MASS. 



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Copyrighted 1912 
By John S. Lawrence 



Compiled, Written, and Printed by Direction of the 

Walton Advertising and Printing Company, 

Boston, Massachusetts 



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FOREWORD 



As clothing has from time immemorial been one of man's 
necessities and almost as essential to his welfare as food, 
it is not surprising that the textile industry has long in 
value of output been second only to the production of food- 
stuffs. Important, however, as the industry is, its history, 
so far as the writer knows, has never, at least in America, 
been published. Aside from its importance the industry 
possesses much of interest not only for the student, but also 
for the man of affairs. Different branches of the industry, 
such as wool, silk, cotton, and linen, have been treated 
separately, but nothing has been written about the origin 
and growth of the industry as a whole. 

This book, of which some explanation is necessary, is an 
effort to fill this gap. Although a complete history of the 
industry has not been the aim of the writer nor the desire 
of the publisher, the purpose has been to present to those 
interested in the textile industry a bird's-eye view of the 
leading facts which have marked the progress of the industry 
up to the firm establishment of the manufacture of textiles 
on American soil, together with such intervening facts as 
are necessary to give one a comprehensive view of the 
subject. 

The book deals largely with the development in England 
and America, because in these two countries originated 
the inventions that have brought the industry to its present 
efficiency, and in them also was evolved the factory system 



4 FOREWORD 

which has so greatly revolutionized social life in England 
and America. 

All of the facts have been verified by careful investiga- 
tion, some of which has gone back to original sources. As 
far as it goes, this brief history endeavors to be authoritative 
and comprehensive. Much attention is given to the Ameri- 
can development, particularly that relating to the cotton 
industry. 

To cover the subject as it deserves would require more 
space than could be contained in a single volume. And, 
while a more complete history might be more interesting 
to the student, it would be less so to the textile man for 
whom this has been primarily written, because of the nec- 
essary introduction of a mass of minor details that would 
be too tedious for him to peruse. The writer hopes that the 
man interested in the textile business, whether he be a 
manufacturer or a clerk behind the counter, may obtain 
from these pages a clear view of the development of America's 
leading industry, without having to give the subject the 
time that a fuller narrative would require. 

Mr. John S. Lawrence, for whom this book has been 
prepared and by whom it is published, is a partner of the 
firm of Lawrence & Co., one of the largest commission 
houses for the distribution of textile products in America. 
Many of its former members have filled important places 
in the establishment of the industry in the great textile 
centres of America. 

The writer desires to acknowledge the courtesy shown 
in facilitating the preparation of this book by C. J. H. 
Woodbury, Sc.D., secretary of the National Association of 
Cotton Manufacturers; L. W. Jenkins, Curator of Ethnol- 
ogy, Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.; W. P. Wilson, 
Sc.D., Director Commercial Museum, Philadelphia; Miss 



/37 



FOREWORD 5 

S. G. Flint, of the Textile Department of the Museum 
of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.; and also to acknowledge his 
indebtedness to the following authorities: "Silk Industry 
in America," by L. P. Brockett; "Manual of Power," 
by Samuel Webber; "Loom and Spindle," by Mrs. Harriet 
Hanson Robinson; "Illustrated History of Lowell," by 
Charles Cowley; "Introduction of the Power Loom and 
Origin of Lowell," by Nathan Appleton; "Draper's Dic- 
tionary," by W. Beck; "The American Cotton Industry," 
by T. M. Young; "Introduction and Early Progress of the 
Cotton Manufacture in the United States," by Samuel 
Batchelder; "The Textile Industries of the United States," 
by William R. Bagnall; "History of the Cotton Manufac- 
ture in Great Britain," by Edward Baines; "Fabrilla: A 
Substitute for Cotton," by Stephen Merrill Allen; "Histor- 
ical Sketch of the Town of Pawtucket," by Rev. Massena 
Goodrich; "The First Cotton Mill in America" (in Essex 
Institute Historical Collections), by Robert S. Rantoul; 
"A Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture," by 
Richard Guest; "History of Lynn," by A. Lewis and J. R. 
Newhall; "Economic and Social History of New Eng- 
land," by William B. Weeden; "Lancashire Worthies," by 
Francis Espinasse; "Brief Biographies of Inventors of Ma- 
chines for Textile Fabrics," by Bennet Woodcroft; "Life 
and Times of Samuel Crompton," by G. J. French; "Me- 
moir of Cartwright," by his daughter; "History of Law- 
rence," compiled by H. A. Wadsworth; "Annals of 
Providence," by William R. Staples; "History of New 
Bedford," by Leonard Bolles Ellis; "History of Manches- 
ter," by Maurice D. Clarke; "The Cotton Industry," by 
W. B. Hammond; "The Cotton Manufacture of Great 
Britain," by Andrew Ure; "Memoir of Patrick Tracy 
Jackson," by John A. Lowell; "Memoir of Samuel Slater," 



6 FOREWORD 

by George S. White; "Memoir of Eli Whitney," by Den- 
ison Olmstead; "The Factory," by Jonathan Thayer Lin- 
coln; "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 
at the End of the Century," by Edward Field; "History 
of Philadelphia," by Scharf and Westcott; Chambers's 
"Book of Days"; "A Comprehensive History of the Woolen 
and Worsted Manufactures," by James Bischoff; and "His- 
tory of Manufactures," by Bishop; also "The Report of 
the Tariff Board on Schedule K" and articles in the En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica, Universal Encyclopaedia, Encyclo- 
paedia Americana, the Textile Manufacturers' Journal, the 
Textile World Record, the Fall River Herald, the Fall 
River News, and the various census reports relating to 
linen, wool, cotton, and silk. 

Thanks are also due The Macmillan Company and the 
Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to use reproduc- 
tions of illustrations from their publications ; also to Job L. 
Spencer for the illustration of the Old Slater Mill, from 
a sketch by his son; to the Rhode Island Historical Society 
for the courtesy extended in securing the portrait of 
Moses Brown; to the New Haven Colony Historical So- 
ciety for the portrait of Eli Whitney; and for the facilities 
extended in the preparation of this work by The Commer- 
cial Museum, Philadelphia; A. H. Baldwin, Chief of the 
Bureau of the Department of Commerce and Labor, 
Washington, D.C.; Dr. F. H. Bowman, of Manchester, 
England; Miss Henrietta C. Cattanach; Miss N. L. King- 
man; George R. King; Chicopee Manufacturing Company, 
Chicopee Falls, Mass.; the Draper Company, Hopedale, 
Mass.; and to Potomska Mills, New Bedford, Mass. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Beginning of Textiles 13 

Prehistoric Evidences of the Art — Textile Industry among 
the Ancients — Early Existence in North and South America — 
The West's Textile Indebtedness to the East. 

CHAPTER II 

Flax, Linen, Wool, Cotton, and Silk 24 

Flax and Linen — History of Linen — Production of Flax and 
Linen — Wool — Efforts to improve Wool — Early Use of Wool 
— Cotton, the Plant, Growth, and Distribution — Early His- 
tory — Columbus and Cotton — Silk — Early History of Silk — 
Silk Industry in America. 

CHAPTER III 

Factory System 59 

Growth of the Factory System — Earliest Record of English 
Factory — English Names derived from Industry — Causes of 
the Concentration in Lancaster — Separation of Agriculture and 
Spinning and Weaving — Early Relationship of Employer and 
Employee — Inventions and the Factory System — Influence of 
Factory on EngKsh Social Life. 

CHAPTER IV 

Era of Invention 71 

Era of Invention — Early Improvements in Textile Machinery 
— John Kay — ^Paul and Wyatt — ^James Hargreaves — Richard 
Arkwright — Samuel Crompton — Edmund Cartwright — ^Inven- 
tions of Knitting Machines — Ipswich Mills — Joseph Marie 
Charles Jacquard — Machines for spinning Flax — ^James Watt 
— Eli Whitney — ^Improvements of the Basic Machines, and 
Further Inventions — ^Bleaching — ^Dyeing — Printing — Merceriz- 
ing Process. 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER V 

American Industry before the Revolution 122 

American Industry — Earliest Traces of the Industry — ^Foster- 
ing Legislation — First Cloth made and First Mill erected at 
Rowley — Slave TraflSe and Importations — English Efforts to 
hamper the Industry — First Worsted Mill — Skill attained in 
Textile Work — Bounties and Monopolies to stimulate the In- 
dustry — The Spinning Craze — ^Approach of the Revolution — 
Improvements in English Textile Machinery — Condition of 
the Market immediately after the Revolution — American 
Effort to secure English Machines — ^England and Cotton — 
Starting of Cotton Cultivation in the South — Origin of Sea 
Island Cotton and Beginning of its Cultivation in the South. 

CHAPTER VI 

American Industry after the Revolution and before 

Slater 148 

First Manufacturing in Pennsylvania — First Cotton MiU in 
New England — First Textile Trade-mark — First Textile Ad- 
vertising — ^Boston Sail Cloth Factory — Commencement of 
the Cotton Industry in Rhode Island — First Woolen Mill — 
Washington inaugurated in Suit of Domestic Woolen — ^First 
Woolen Mill operated with Power Machinery. 

CHAPTER Vn 

Era of Samuel Slater 168 

Slater's Arrival in America — Goes to Providence — Starts First 
Cotton Mill with Arkwright's Machines in America — Payment 
and Discipline of Employees — Starts his Second Mill; the 
First with Arkwright Machinery in Massachusetts — First Com- 
mission Houses — Shepard starts Mill at Wrentham — Other 
Mills start — Whittenton Cotton Mills — Start of the Industry 
in Connecticut — Spread of Industry through Influence of 
Slater — Gilmore's Loom — ^Beginning of Power Woolen Mills 
in Rhode Island — Southern Development. 



CONTENTS 9 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII 
Era of Lowell, Appleton, Moody, Jackson, and Boott, 192 

First Complete Cotton Mill in the World — Lowell visits Eng- 
lish, Mills — Organization of the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany — Care of Employees — Sale of Goods — Waltham versus 
Rhode Island System of Manufacturing — The Foundation of 
the City of Lowell and the Starting of the Merrimac Manu- 
facturing Company — Naming of Lowell — Starting of First 
Mills. 

CHAPTER IX 

Other Textile Centres 210 

Philadelphia the Greatest Textile-producing City of America 
— Silk Industry in Philadelphia — Development of the Woolen 
Industry — Textile Machinery — Carpet Industry — Later 
Growth — Foundation of Lawrence — Beginning of Fall River 
—Colonel Durfee's MiU— The Troy and Fall River MiUs— 
Early Looms, Work, and Wages — Other Companies — Provi- 
dence — ^Paterson, N.J. — New Bedford — Manchester — Amos- 
keag lays out a Town — New York — Amsterdam — Woonsocket, 
R.I. — Conclusion. 

Index 253 

Errata 275 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



American Indian Weaving Frontispiece ^ 

Facing Page 

Warrior of Gilbert Islands, South Pacific Ocean . . 13 '^ 
Greek and Roman Method of Spinning and Weaving . 16'^ 
Navajo Woman making Yarn of Native Wool .... ^0*^ 
Specimens of North Dakota Grown Russian Seed- 
flax; Cutting Hemp 24*^ 

Linen Mummy Cloths 28"^ 

Egyptian Tunic; Peruvian Tunic 32"^ 

The Cotton Plant 36*^ 

Fabrics Woven by the Bakuba Tribe 40*^ 

The Eggs, Caterpillar, Cocoons and Moth of the 

Silkworm 44 

Enlarged Reproductions of Textile Fibres 48*^ 

Japanese Spinning and Weaving 52*^ 

The Mule 56*^ 

Ancient Egyptians Spinning and Weaving 60^ 

Bowing of Cotton, as practised in India and China; A 
Hindu Woman spinning Cotton Yarn on the 

Primitive Wheel of India 64*^ 

Domestic Flax Wheel; Hindu Spinning and Weaving, 68 '^ 

Hindu Weaver at his Loom 72' 

John Kay 76*" 

Sir Richard Arkwright SO'" 

Samuel Crompton 84"^ 

Dr. Edmund Cartwright ' 88" 

Cartwright's Loom 92 

Amos A. Lawrence 96 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing Page 

Eli Whitney 100'' 

Distaff Spinning 106''' 

Handicraft Carding, Roving, and Spinning by the 

Hand Wheel 112^ 

Peg Warping 118"' 

Warping 124^ 

The Loom that preceded the Power Loom ISO'' 

High's Jenny 136^ 

The Improved Jenny 142^ 

A Handicraft Weaver at her Loom 148" 

Arkwright's Original Water Frame with the Specifi- 
cations ON the Original Patent Papers taken 

OUT by him on July 15, 1769 154^ 

The Old Slater Mill, Pawtucket, R. 1 160''' 

Carding, Drawing, and Roving as it was in Samuel 

Slater's Early Mills 166^ 

Samuel Slater 172"^' 

Moses Brown 178"'' 

Washington's Visit to the First Cotton Mill at 

Beverly, Mass., Oct. 30, 1789 184'' 

Francis C. Lowell 190' 

Nathan Appleton 196 

P. T. Jackson 202 

A Modern Mule Spinning-room 208 '^ 

Samuel Wetherill 214"^ 

Abbott Lawrence 220' 

Interior View of a Modern Ring Spinning-Mill . . . 226 

Amos Lawrence 232 

Interior View op a Modern Weave-room 238 

Modern Automatic Northrop Looms 244 




WARRIOR OF THE GILBERT ISLANDS, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN 

(From an Exhibit in the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.) 

His armor is woven of cocoanut fibre, and is a protection against the 
native weapons which are edged with swords' teeth. The mat at his back 
is a protection against stones thrown at the enemy by the warrior's wife, 
who follows in the rear. This shows a most primitive form of weaving. 



THE 
STORY OF TEXTILES 

CHAPTER I 

BEGINNING OF TEXTILES 

PREHISTORIC EVIDENCES OP THE ART — TEXTILE INDUSTRY AMONG 
THE ANCIENTS — EARLY EXISTENCE IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMER- 
ICA — THE west's TEXTILE INDEBTEDNESS TO THE EAST 

A bit of cloth — whether it be woolen or cotton, linen or 
silk — is one of the most interesting evidences of man's 
climb from days of savagery to twentieth-century civiliza- 
tion. 

As one notes how finely spun and how intricately woven 
are the threads and how beautiful often is the design, the 
wonder grows that a piece of cloth can be so dexterously 
fashioned. And yet, as one reads of the painstaking efforts 
— spread over many centuries — which man has put forth 
to attain perfection in spinning and weaving, the wonder 
fades into admiration for the infinite pains he has taken 
to perfect the art. Civilization's pathway is strewn with 
the evidences of the labor to compass a mastery of the in- 
dustry. Older far than recorded history is the tale of fabrics. 

To find its beginning, we must go beyond the dawn of 
history into the darkness of prehistoric times; for, when man 
first began to scratch his deeds on the rocks of his dwelling- 
place, fabrics, more or less perfect, were being fashioned, 
ornamented, and dyed. 

Even the archaeologist cannot fully enlighten us. No 
matter how deeply he may delve into the most remote past 



14 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

to which he can sink the plummet of his research, evidences 
of spinning and weaving are found among the vestiges of 
the rude home of prehistoric man. 



PREHISTORIC EVIDENCES OF THE ART 

The art was practised in the earHest Stone Age. How 
much farther back it was a domestic art it is impossible 
to learn, owing to the perishable nature of the materials 
from which many fabrics were fashioned. According to 
some authorities it may have been contemporaneous with 
the discovery of fire for cooking and the building of shelter. 
Others are sure it is older than the fashioning of domestic 
utensils by the art of Pottery. 

It is believed that sinews and intestines of animals, strips 
of skin, flax, hemp, wool, the bast of the linden, and the 
fibre of the palm and cocoanut and other trees, and various 
wild grasses were used in the making of mats, baskets, 
nets, and rude fabrics at the dawn of the earliest era of the 
Stone Age, if not before, — many thousands of years before 
the beginning of civilization. 

Evidences of the industry have also been found among 
prehistoric or savage races in parts of the world so widely 
separated that it is quite certain a knowledge of the industry 
sprang up independently, in different places. 

It is fair to conjecture that thousands of years before the 
dawn of civilization some savage matron, sitting in front of 
the cave or rude hut which sheltered her, wove the original 
basket from the rushes of a brook that perchance may 
have gurgled at her feet, or may have cut strips of skin from 
the animal her lord and master had slain, and plaited them 
into the original fabric that was the beginning of textiles. 
It does not require much stretch of the imagination to con- 
ceive of this taking place in the diflFerent parts of the world 
where the industry began. 

Flax fabrics dating back to a period thousands of years 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 15 

ago have been unearthed in England. The ruins of the 
Lake Dwellers of the Stone Age in Switzerland have pro- 
duced them. Textiles of much beauty that belong thousands 
of years before Christ have been discovered among the 
earliest ruins of Peru, Mexico, and Egypt, and in the cave 
dwellings of New Mexico and Arizona. 

The ruins of the Swiss Lake Dwellers, which were dis- 
covered in the winter of 1853-54, abundantly prove that 
the art was known in the earliest era of the Stone Age, — 
the period of the mammoth and cave bear. The winter 
of 1853-54 was cold and so very dry that water in the 
alpine lakes of both Switzerland and Northern Italy re- 
ceded so far that the dwellers on many of them saw evidences 
of ancient dwellings built on poles projecting from the lakes. 
Some sections were dyked, and many excavations com- 
menced which unearthed village after village that had been 
covered by the mud of centuries. Wangen in Lake Con- 
stance, a village in Lake Mosseedorf, Robenhausen in the 
bog of Lake Pfaffikon, and Auvernier in Lake Neuchatel 
were the most interesting. 

Some of the lowest villages were many feet down, and 
belonged to the earliest Stone Age. In them were found 
crude but serviceable fabrics of bast, flax, and wool, and 
signs that the growth and manufacture of cloth of flax and 
wool at so early a date was an important industry. Spindle 
whorls were without number. Flax in all stages, from the 
unprepared straw with seed capsules in perfect preservation 
to excellent specimens of plaited and woven fabrics, was 
unearthed, and some of it was ornamented with rude human 
figures. Strings, yarns of flax in bales ready for the spinners, 
rope and cordage, were also found. 

Specimens of these fabrics may be seen in many museums, 
and show that the Lake Dwellers of the oldest Stone Era 
plaited, wattled, and wove cloth, and knew all the opera- 
tions, from binding and tying, basket and mat plaiting, to 
weaving. Basket making on a finer scale, w^th the flax 



16 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

twisted into a thread, probably led to the textile industry 
which these prehistoric people practised. 

So perfected had the industry become by the time the 
Bronze Age arrived that rude spindles and looms were 
employed which were very similar to those used to-day 
by some of the uncivilized tribes, and the art had reached 
a state where various designs were worked into the fabric 
with needle and thread. 

Evidences of a similar textile industry have been found 
in the barrows of the early Bretons, where bodies were 
discovered that were wrapped in plaited woolen cloth. 
Similar fabrics, of an era so many thousands of years ago 
that archaeologists cannot accurately fix the date, have been 
discovered in the homes of the ancient Cliff Dwellers of 
South-western America. 



TEXTILE INDUSTRY AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

At the dawn of history, wool, flax, cotton, and silk were 
being woven in the East with the greatest skill, and which 
was the first material used in weaving is not known. It 
is probable, however, that the possession of flocks and herds 
led to the spinning and weaving of wool before either cotton, 
flax or silk was so used; and the fact that here and there 
ancient records speak of fabrics of cotton and silk as if they 
were rare luxuries would indicate that linen and woolen 
fabrics were too common to receive much attention, and 
that those of the other materials were relatively novel. 

The earliest ancient history describes Eastern nations 
as having already attained a high degree of skill, not only 
in the spinning and weaving of fabrics, but in their dyeing 
and ornamentation. On the walls of Nineveh, Babylon, 
Thebes, and the ancient cities of Peru and Mexico, through- 
out most of the ruins of Assyria, Persia, Egypt, and among 
similar ruins of both North and South America, is depicted 
the whole process of the textile industry, from the raising 




GREEK AND ROMAN METHOD OF SPINNING AND WEAVING 

(From old woodcuts) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 17 

of the sheep or growing of the flax to the spinning of the 
yarn and weaving of the fabrics. 

The Bible in Genesis and Exodus refers to the art, 
Homer, Herodotus, Confucius, and PHny, all relate tradi- 
tions of how and when it originated. It is a fact estab- 
Kshed by thousands of hieroglyphics and confirmed by the 
oldest of Eastern historians that the Chinese, Hindus, 
Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and Hebrews 
practised spinning and weaving with great skill at a very 
remote period. 

One Chinese tradition is that silk weaving was practised 
in Kiang Nan, China, in 2640 B.C. Another is that cotton 
originated in India, and that shawls and carpets were 
first woven in Persia. Fabrics of wonderful excellence 
were wrought by the Egyptians certainly twenty-five hun- 
dred years before Christ, and probably three thousand. At 
this early period the dwellers along the Nile wove linen 
cloth of a fineness that is still unequalled. About one 
Egyptian mummy was found linen cloth containing 540 
warp threads to the inch, while the best woven in England 
up to a recent date had but 350 threads to the inch. 

It is said that the Egyptians put a shuttle in the hands 
of their goddess Isis to signify she was the inventress of 
weaving. Joseph in Genesis about 1600 B.C. records that 
Pharaoh "arrayed him in vestures of fine linen." Another 
early reference to weaving is in the Bible (Leviticus xiii. 
47-59) which speaks of the warp and woof of woolen and 
linen garments, their defilement from leprosy, and the 
necessity of their being burned by the priest, and shows 
that in 1500 B.C. the Israelites knew the art. Mummy 
cloths from the pyramids have borders of blue and fawn 
color which were made of threads colored in the yarn. 
Fabrics of many textures and degrees of fineness were 
commonly used by the Egyptians for clothing, draperies, 
banners, and for many ceremonial uses. Wool, flax, and 
cotton were all known and used by the Egyptians, as 



18 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

their tombs attest; and the process of dyeing was well 
established. 

According to Pliny, the Assyrians believed Queen Se- 
miramis invented weaving, although he gives the honor 
of the invention to the Egyptians. Among the Greeks, 
Minerva is shown with a distaff, and is recognized as having 
first taught man the art. Again, the Mohammedans say 
that the art originated with a son of Japhet; while the 
Peruvians point to Mama Ocllo, wife of Manco Capac, 
their first sovereign, as the originator. The absence of any 
authentic written records ' means unmistakably that it was 
prehistoric among different peoples about the same time. 

Homer, the Greek poet, who lived 850 B.C., was the first 
historical writer to tell of weaving. He describes Penelope 
waiting for the return of her husband Ulysses from the 
Trojan War. Ulysses had endeavored to escape being 
called to war by feigning madness, but his trick was dis- 
covered, and he was compelled to serve away from home 
more than twenty years. 

In the mean time the chieftains of Ithaca and the neigh- 
boring island wooed Penelope. Loving Ulysses, however, 
and hoping for his return, she refused to accede to the 
pleasure of the suitors, who remained, wasting Ulysses' 
means, insulting his son, and bribing the servants. 

"Wait," said she, when they became impatient, "until 
I have woven a winding sheet for old Icarius, the father 
of Ulysses, so that I shall not lose my threads." 

And she is described at her loom undoing each night the 
day's work, so that the web might never be finished. This 
went on for three years until her maids revealed her strat- 
egy, and she was driven to desperate straits to keep off 
the suitors. Ulysses finally returned in time to save her, 
and husband and wife were united. And thus it was that 
Penelope became among the Greeks and Romans the god- 
dess of weaving. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 19 



EARLY EXISTENCE IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA 

The art in North and South America seems to have 
sprung up independently of the rest of the world, and also 
at a prehistoric date. The ancient Peruvians and ancient 
Mexicans wove cloth of wonderful fineness and with a finish 
not unlike lustrous silk. Many of the beautiful shades 
cannot be surpassed by the best skill of to-day. 

Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, found the art in 1533 
had reached a perfection beyond the best artisans of Spain. 
The wool was furnished by the small llama and the alpaca, 
long domesticated, and by the vicuna and guanaco, which 
ran wild among the fastnesses of the Andes. A wild kind 
of cotton was also employed. Both sides of the fabric 
were woven alike, and the design and brilliant coloring 
of some of the specimens in the museums show a skill and 
art even now rarely excelled by the best artisans. 

The resemblance between the Peruvian fabrics and those 
found in the tombs of the Egyptian kings is striking. In 
both cases the textile industry had reached equally high 
development. The Peruvian spindles were of wood, and 
had solid sun-burned clay whorls of beautiful finish. Yarns 
were twisted by wetting and rolling between the fingers 
and part of the body. The needles used were made from 
wood, bone, or copper. Among the fabrics thus woven 
were vests, smock-like outer garments similar to the poncho, 
loosely woven cloths, loin girdles, head coverings, and 
sandals, home drapings for walls, doors, awnings, banners, 
and blankets. The ceremonial fabrics were of high 
color. 

These fabrics of the Incas are at least one thousand 
years old. Color and design are of a high order, and are 
as beautiful to-day as when woven, showing that even the 
use of dyes had been highly developed. Geometric, con- 
ventionalized animal and human figures are shown on 
mummy cloths. Both cotton and wool were used, and 



20 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the material was woven upon simple hand looms from yarn 
spun in the crudest way. 

Some of the American Indians wove fabrics of a high order. 
Blankets made by the Navajos of Arizona and New Mexico 
are of so close a texture they will hold water, and in design 
and brilliancy of color are most striking, although woven 
in a primitive manner, by hand. 

The beautiful white "Tappa" cloth of the South Sea 
Islands was made in a peculiar way, especially by the 
natives of the Marquesas Islands. Instead of being woven, 
it was beaten together. The exterior green bark was 
stripped from the branches of the so-called "cloth" tree, 
a species of the mulberry, which grows luxuriantly in those 
regions, and the remaining fibrous substance was then re- 
moved from the stick to which it had adhered. A quantity 
of this fabric wrapped in large leaves, and secured by fibrous 
cords to prevent its being swept away, was placed in the 
bed of a running stream. After two or three days' immersion 
the bundles were opened and the fibres pulled out and ex- 
posed to the air. Each piece was inspected to ascertain 
whether it was ready for the remaining operations. If not, 
it went back to the bed of the brook until the conditions 
were such as were desired. 

When evidences of decomposition were shown by the 
fibres becoming soft and flexible, the natives knew that 
the material was in the proper condition for the next step 
of the operation. The different strips were then laid in 
layers upon a smooth surface, such as the prostrate trunk 
of a cocoanut-tree, and were beaten with a kind of heavy 
mallet, made of ebony, in shape somewhat like an old- 
fashioned razor-strop. Upon the surface of the hammer 
were shallow parallel indentations, which varied in depth 
on different sides, so that it was adapted to the several 
stages of the operation. The hammering thus produced 
the corduroy stripes that were prominent in the *' Tappa." 

The fibres of the "Tappa" were thus beaten, and layer 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 21 

after layer was put on until the whole was merged into one 
mass. The beating then continued, water from time to 
time being added, until the material reached the required 
thinness, according to the purpose for which it was to be 
used. It was then placed on the grass to bleach, and came 
out a dazzling whiteness; or it was impregnated with vege- 
table dyes, which gave it a permanent color. Brown and 
yellow were generally the common tints. 

According to Captain Sylvanus Nickerson, who commanded 
the clipper ship "Huguenot" when she was lost in 1880 
off the island of Java, the Malays of some of the islands 
of the Ombay Straits still weave their garments of cotton 
which is grown in the same row with the corn, with little 
or no cultivation, and without any effort to separate the 
plants. They take the cotton as it comes from the boll, 
and, making it into a ball, twist the fibre with the fingers, 
pulling it from the ball. As fast as the cotton is twisted 
into the required thread, the crude thread thus formed 
is wrapped on a piece of bamboo about five or six inches 
long. When a sufficient quantity has been prepared, it is 
put on the loom for weaving. The loom consists of two 
upright posts, or sticks, driven into the ground at the dis- 
tance required to give the fabric a certain width. The 
warp is wrapped about these sticks, and the weft thread 
is worked in and out with a crude needle and pounded into 
position. 

The method of weaving practised to-day by the Navajos 
is the same as that employed by the hand weavers of India 
and China, and is virtually identical with the method that 
has been used from the beginning by primitive weavers the 
world over. The warp is stretched between two parallel 
poles suspended between upright posts, and the weft 
threads are drawn in and out of the warp with a rude 
wooden needle somewhat like a fisherman's needle and 
beaten together with a stick. Seated upon the ground, 
and with no pattern save that in the mind's eye, geometric 



22 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

designs and quaint figures are worked in the fabric with 
threads of beautiful colors. 

Basket weaving of hemp and the soft bast of linden was 
quite generally known by the savages at Wellfleet. Among 
the Algonquin Indians feathers of the wild turkey and other 
birds, and white hair of the moose were beautifully woven 
into hempen garments and articles of utility. In 1785 
Eli Twichel, of Bethel, Me., received from Millocket, 
an old Indian woman of Oxford, a twofold pocket-book 
which she had woven of hemp and beautifully embroidered 
with long white hair of the moose. It shows admirably 
the high state of art reached by the Algonquins, and is now 
in the Maine Historical Society. 



THE WEST S TEXTILE INDEBTEDNESS TO THE EAST 

As civilization spread from the East to the West, so Asia 
and Egypt passed on to Greece, Italy, Spain, and the rest 
of Europe the knowledge in its higher form of spinning 
and weaving, Italy and Greece first used the information 
thus obtained, and then taught Spain, France, and Flanders 
the art of weaving woolen and cotton goods. 

At a late date in ancient history Germany had obtained 
the art, and its people were secretly practising it in caves 
and vaults, as if they were either afraid of it becoming 
known or, being a warlike people, were too proud to have 
it said that they labored at the loom. England and North- 
eastern Europe received the knovfledge from Germany. 

By the tenth century the manufacture of woolens had 
attained such perfection in Flanders that one author said, 
"The art of weaving seems to be a gift bestowed upon them 
by nature," and another, that "all the world was clothed 
from English wool wrought in Flanders." Count Bald- 
win III. of Flanders had established the first weavers and 
fullers at Ghent shortly before 961, and also instituted 
yearly fairs at Ypres, Bruges, and other places. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 23 

The invasion of England by William the Conqueror, in 
1066, found the Angles and Saxons already spinning and 
weaving the wool of their flocks, and considerable skill had 
been attained, though it had not reached the high level of 
the Continental work, particularly as practised by the people 
of France and Flanders. As the invasion brought in its 
train a large immigration to England of the Flemings, who 
settled in the western part of England along the Irish Chan- 
nel and in what is now Lancaster, their skill raised English 
spinning and weaving to a level little below that of the 
Continent, and made their part of England a great seat of 
the industry. It received further impetus during the reign 
of Henry I. from further immigration of workmen from 
Flanders. And still more Flemish weavers, because of 
their great skill in weaving and spinning, were induced by 
Queen Elizabeth to settle in England; and so was the foun- 
dation laid in England of what has become the greatest 
textile manufacturing centre in the world. And now let 
us glance at the history of the raw and manufactured prod- 
ucts of flax, wool, cotton, and silk. 



CHAPTER II 

FLAX, LINEN, WOOL, COTTON, AND SILK 

FLAX AND LINEN — HISTORY OF LINEN — PRODUCTION OF FLAX AND 
LINEN — WOOL — EFFORTS TO IMPROVE WOOL — EARLY USE OF 
WOOL — COTTON, THE PLANT, GROWTH, AND DISTRIBUTION — 
EARLY HISTORY — COLUMBUS AND COTTON — SILK — EARLY HIS- 
TORY OF SILK — SILK INDUSTRY IN AMERICA 

Flax, the term used to denote the plant and the fibre, di- 
vides with wool the distinction of being the material first 
used in spinning and weaving. The plant belongs to the 
botanical order termed Linacese, and is known scientifi- 
cally as Linum usitatissimum. It is an annual with stalk 
rising two to three feet and more in height, has narrow lance- 
shaped leaves and branches at the top with a bright blue 
flower on each branch. 

Flax has been cultivated for thousands of years in Meso- 
potamia, Assyria, and Egypt, and is wild in the region be- 
tween the Persian Gulf, the Caspian and Black Seas. 

The stalk is a woody cylinder, more or less pithy and 
hollow when dry, and is enclosed in bark consisting of long, 
strong, silky fibres, cemented together by a kind of glue 
and encased in an outer bark or skin which adheres as if 
glued to the fibre. The fibre, when freed from all else so far 
as possible by the process of rotting, to destroy the glue, 
breaking to free it from the woody part of the stalk, scrutch- 
ing to whip out the small particles of bark and stalk that 
adhere, hatchelling to straighten it and free it from tangles, 
is nearly pure bast of a light gray and brown color, inclining 
to green. It is exceedingly tough, adapted to spinning and 
weaving, capable of being bleached to snowy whiteness, 




SPECIMENS OF NORTH DAKOTA GROWN RUSSIAN SEED-FLAX 




CUTTING HEMP 

(From illustrations furnished by the United States Department of Agriculture) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 25 

and will take more readily than cotton a variety of colors 
by dyeing. 

The ultimate filaments vary from one six hundred and 
fiftieth to one five thousandth of an inch, are hollow, thick- 
walled, and nearly solid cylindrical cells, terminated by 
exceedingly attenuated points. They are semi-transparent, 
of a silky lustre, and under the microscope the walls of the 
tube appear like a double line through the centre. The 
cells are jointed like stalks of bamboo. When the fibre 
is separated, it is either dressed flax or tow. The seeds, 
small and glossy green, are called linseed, and furnish the 
linseed oil of commerce. As the gum joining the mature 
flax fibres is insoluble by methods that are profitable, the 
thread for linen cloth is made from the green flax. If the 
seed is allowed to mature as a source of oil, the flax straw 
is useless for linen; for all attempts to utilize flax straw 
have as yet been without commercial success, though the 
ripened flax straw has been known to withstand without de- 
cay the weather for about a century, showing its great lasting 
qualities. 

In the preparation of flax for spinning, it is soaked in 
water or exposed to the dew until the woody part rots or 
rets away from the basty interior, which is then separated 
from the woody enclosure. The heckle, a many-toothed 
steel comb, then removes the coarser tow and separates 
the filaments of the flax. Upon the number of hecklings, 
so called, depends the fineness of the flax, for the fibres 
are united into a roving which is spun into a continuous 
thread. 



HISTORY OF LINEN 

Linen, the general term for the material spun from flax or 
hemp, antedates existing records belonging to the earliest 
eras of the prehistoric ages of which traces have been dis- 
covered, and has been found in the villages of the Lake 



26 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Dwellers and in other parts of the world where ruins have 
disclosed the remnants of fabrics. 

The Finns introduced flax into North Europe, the West 
Aryans brought it to West Europe, while the East Aryans 
conveyed it to Hindustan. In ancient Europe the priest, 
only, wore linen habitually. Frequent references to it 
may be found in the Bible to show the esteem in which it 
was held. It is said in Genesis that hail destroyed the 
flax and barley. Herodotus refers to it as an article of 
Egyptian export. The wrapping of most of the mummies, 
some of which are three thousand to four thousand years 
old, is of linen. In Homer the mother of Nausicaa is de- 
picted as spinning purple fabrics at early dawn by the 
hearth. 

The garments of the Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek, and 
Roman priests were often made of fine linen. Bengal cul- 
tivated the flax, and the Hindustanee spun and wove it 
into linen at an early date in ancient history, as did also 
the ancient Thracians. In mediaeval times Italy and Spain 
and France were celebrated for their linen fabrics. Char- 
lemagne in the eighth century a.d., like many a modern, 
wore linen underwear. The Moors of Spain brought the 
industry to a state of high perfection and exported their 
fine linen to Constantinople and India. 

Flanders, Brabant, some of the German towns, and 
France were making linen fabrics by the eleventh century, 
and before 1250 Flanders had begun extensive exportation 
to England. Ypres, which as early as 960 was one of the 
seats of the industry, has given us the word "diaper," or 
cloth of Ypres, which then denoted a great fineness of man- 
ufacture. The King of France in 1394 sent the fine linen 
of Rheims as a ransom to the Sultan for some noblemen 
who had fallen into his subjects' hands. The famous 
Bayeux tapestry is of linen body with the designs in 
wool. 

Among the Anglo-Saxons linen and wool were both spun 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 27 

and woven, and history mentions the skill of the daughters 
of Edward the Elder. Fine linen was made in Sussex and 
Wiltshire as early as 1253. A guild of linen weavers was 
organized in 1386 at London. The linen industry, however, 
did not flourish in England as it did on the Continent, so 
that in 1677 it was proposed to establish spinning schools 
as they then existed in Germany. As many as two hundred 
girls from six years upwards sat under the supervision of a 
woman who in a pulpit directed the pupils, and tapped with 
a long white wand any child who neglected her work. 
When this did not suffice, she rang a bell, and the offender 
was taken away and whipped. 

Irish linen weaving began in the eleventh century, but 
it received its great impetus from Louis Crommelin, who 
had been driven from France by the revocation of the 
Edict of Naiites in 1685, which instituted religious persecu- 
tion. From this period also begins England's supremacy 
in the textile industry, for the religious intolerance that 
the edict entailed drove three hundred thousand of the best 
French artisans from their native country. It was not 
until 1725 that machinery was used in Irish weaving, and 
not until 1828 that flax was spun by machinery. 

Linen had begun to be woven in Scotland in the reign 
of Charles I., and by 1688 had become an important Scot- 
tish industry, which had already raised the apprehensions 
of the English weavers; for the Scotch packmen who went 
into England in 1684 to sell goods were sometimes whipped 
as malefactors and required to give bonds that they would 
abandon the trade. 

Linen was also one of the Puritan domestic industries, 
and as linsey-woolsey gave its name jointly to a fabric 
composed both of flax and wool. Linen has never been 
successfully woven in America except in the coarser forms 
of crash and towelling. Scotland, Ireland, and Belgium 
produce the finest linen; Russia, the largest amount of 
flax; and Coutrai, Belgium, the flax best prepared for 



28 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

spinning. Most of the American-grown flax is raised for 
seed only. 

PRODUCTION OF FLAX AND LINEN 

America has never been able to equal the Continent in 
its production of the finest linen, none of the growers of 
flax giving the attention to the proper preparation of the 
fibre which has made that of the Belgian, Irish, and French 
growers so superior. Most of the Western farmers grow 
their flax for the seed. The tedious process of the separa- 
tion of the fibre from the stalk and its preparation for the 
yarn require the cheapest form of labor to make it profit- 
able, and for this reason more than any other America 
has not yet raised the flax fibre in quantities that would 
be commercially successful. 

The total production of flax for the year 1909, or the last 
year given by the census of the flax-producing countries, 
was 1, 8*7^2,127,000 pounds, of which Russia produced 
1,594,000,000; Austria - Hungary, 104,332,000; France, 
46,340,000; Italy, 44,800,000; United Kingdom, 26,934,- 
000; and the United States but 4,000,000 pounds. The 
number of establishments producing flax, hemp, and jute 
products in America in 1909 was 149, the value of the prod- 
uct was $58,946,000, the capital invested was $73,393,000, 
and the number of employees was 26,361. 

Russia, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, 
England, Scotland, and Ireland are great producers of linen 
to-day. The best yarn probably comes from Holland, 
Belgium, France, and Ireland. The United States occupies 
a relatively low standard as to the amount of products 
turned out. 

WOOL 

The date at which prehistoric man discarded the pelt 
of skins for the woven fabric of wool or linen marks the 
origin of the textile industry. Wool was probably the 







LINEN MUMMY CLOTHS 

{From an Exhibit in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) 

Specimens from Egypt, date about 1545-1350 B.C. The hiero- 
glyphics are painted yellow and outlined with black. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 29 

first material spun by early man; for flocks and herds 
and a pastoral existence was the first upward step in civ- 
ilization from the primitive conditions of savagery. Prim- 
itive sheep were covered with hair, and the wool which now 
characterizes them was a downy undercoat. As time 
progressed and the art of spinning and weaving developed, 
the food value of sheep decreased as their wool value in- 
creased, and the hairy flocks were bred out and sheep with 
true wool succeeded. Eveti now the growing of hair among 
the wool of old or neglected sheep is an atavistic return to 
the original condition. 

Although the best quality and greatest quantity of wool 
comes from sheep, it is also found on many fur-bearing ani- 
mals, such as the angora goat, cashmere goat, camel, 
alpaca, and the llama. No less than six or eight qualities 
of wool come from a sheep, each kind having its particular 
advantage for manufacturing. As a rule, hair is the longer 
and the exterior fibre, while wool is the short fibre next 
to the skin. Wool is pliable and warm and has the prop- 
erty of felting. 

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE WOOL 

When and where efforts were first made to improve 
the wool production of sheep is not known, but evidences 
exist to show that the Romans about 200 B.C. had begun 
the attempt which resulted in a breed of Tarentine sheep 
with a long, heavy, and fine staple wool. In "De Re 
Rustica" of Columella, written about the middle of the first 
century, he states that his uncle Marcus Columella, a farmer 
of Spain, succeeded in greatly invigorating his delicate 
Tarentine ewes by crossing them with African rams. The 
Tarentine fleece had been either brown or black, but by 
this outside breeding Columella succeeded in procuring not 
only much more vigorous stock, but a heavy, white, fine 
wool. 

The cross-breed thus accomplished was the original of 



30 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the Spanish merino, and with modifications and crossings 
has been the parent stock of the fine-wool sheep of Europe 
and America. Pedro IV. of Castile in the fourteenth 
century and Cardinal Ximenez in the sixteenth century- 
renewed the stock with Barbary rams. The Spanish stock 
was imported by Louis XIV. of France with great diflSculty, 
owing to ^pain's refusal to allow sheep to be imported and 
improved, resulting in the French merino, one of the best 
long- wool breeds. Importation of the same Spanish breed 
to Germany, cross-breeding, and climatic changes have 
produced the fine Saxon wools, so advantageous for the 
best broadcloths. To this merino origin may be traced 
the French sheep of Naz, which produce wool of such 
silky lustre. 

The first mention of sheep in England is in a document 
of 712, where the price of the animal is said to have been 
placed at one shilling "until a fortnight after Easter." 
By the beginning of the thirteenth century England was 
the great wool-producing country of Europe, and was fur- 
nishing the weavers of Flanders their wool to such an extent 
that it was considered good policy for Flanders to keep 
peace with England. 

Sheep were first introduced into America at Jamestown 
in 1609, and the colonial government in all the colonies 
encouraged the raising of sheep. President Washington 
imported the best breeds of sheep from England, and pro- 
moted the bringing to this country of the most experi- 
enced spinners and weavers from England. 

The merino strain was introduced into America between 
1801-12 by William Jarvis, Colonel David Humphreys, and 
others, and with the various merino strains make up the 
flocks prized for their wool. Colonel Humphreys, while 
United States minister to Spain, had conceived the idea of 
introducing merino sheep into America, and April 10, 1802, 
shipped from Lisbon one hundred sheep, nine of which died 
on the way. The remainder were sold to the farmers about 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 31 

Derby, Conn., for a hundred dollars per head and greatly 
improved the strain of American sheep. 

The Australian and Cape Colony sheep which produce 
the best wool have the merino strain. Where the food- 
producing qualities have been considered as well as the wool, 
the wool is apt to be medium or coarse in quality. This is 
true of the South-western and Pacific States flocks, and the 
South American breeds. The best English strains are the 
Leicester, Border Leicester, Lincoln, Cotswold, Kent, 
Devon, Longwool, South Devon, Hampshire, Wensleydale, 
Roscommon and Oxford Down. 

Henry Dudding, of Riby Grove, Lincolnshire, England, 
in 1906 sold a Lincoln ram raised by him for about seven 
thousand dollars. The same year Robert and William 
Wright, of Hocton Heath, Lincoln, sold their flock of 950 
Lincolns to Senor Manuel Cobo, of Buenos Ayres, for 
about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

Wool is divided into pulled and clipped or fleece wools. 
The two latter are cut from the living sheep, while the first 
is pulled by the roots from the pelt of the dead sheep. The 
clipped wools make up the greater part of the market and 
are divided into long and short staple, or combing and 
clothing wools. 

Clothing wools are used for broadcloths and heavy cloths, 
the finer combing wools for the thinner fabrics for women's 
wear. Medium wool is used for worsted goods, alpacas, 
mohairs, and the like, while the coarser goes into carpets, 
blankets, and similar goods. 

The production of wool in the principal sheep-raising 
countries in 1909, as given by the Report of the Tariff 
Board, was 2,490,600,000 pounds, divided as follows: Aus- 
traHa, 718,000,000; Continental Europe, 420,000,000; 
Argentina, 401,200,000; United States, 328,100,000; New 
Zealand, 223,000,000; United Kingdom, 142,000,000; Uru- 
guay, 127,400,000; and British South Africa, 130,900,000. 

The number of sheep raised in America in 1910 was 



32 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

51,809,068, and in the United Kingdom, 31,164,587; in 
Argentina in 1908, 67,211,754; in Australia in 1909, 
91,676,281; in New Zealand in 1911, 23,996,126; South 
Africa in 1910, 31,102,467; Uruguay in 1910, 26,286,296; 
Russia, 82,672,123; Ottoman Empire, 41,000,000; British 
India, 21,824,000; China, 18,900,000; France, 17,357,640; 
Spain, 15,471,183; Austria-Hungary, 13,991,500; Italy, 
11,160,000; Canada, 2,598,470. 

The value of manufactures of wool in America in 1909 
was $507,219,000; the capital invested was $506,323,000, 
ranking next to cotton; the number of establishments was 
1,126; and the number of employees, 208,739. 



EARLY USE OF WOOL 

The spinning and weaving of wool has been practised, 
as we have seen, from a most remote antiquity, and in the 
Far Western America as well as in remote Eastern Japan 
and China. Remnants of wool as well as linen are found 
in the barrows of the Britons and also in other tombs. 
The art is frequently referred to by ancient writers, and, 
when we enter the mediaeval age, we find more frequent 
references to it in the many statutes that were passed re- 
garding it and its regulation. 

Sheep were domestic among the Britons long before the 
advent of the Romans, and some use was made of sheep- 
skin and wool. But the Romans certainly taught the 
Britons more perfect weaving and spinning. The Romans 
established a wool factory which supplied their army, and 
the Britons were quick to learn. It was not long before 
the product of Winchester looms had a reputation abroad, 
and it was said, "The wool of Britain is often spun so fine 
that it is in a manner comparable to the spider's webs." 
The fibre was in great demand in the Low Countries. 

The Angles and the Saxons brought with them to Eng- 
land a knowledge of rude spinning and weaving, and Alfred's 




EGYPTIAN TUNIC 

(From an Exhibit in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) 

A tunic from a Coptic grave in Egypt dating from the first to the seventh 
century a.d. Into the garment of plain basket weave are woven with 
reddish-violet wool and white linen threads circular medallions and bands 
of ornaments. The garment was made in one piece and sewed together 
under the arms. 




PERUVIAN TUNIC 

{From an Exhibit in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) 

Woven with cotton, decorated with borders of tapestry weaving of colored 
wools. The red wools are dyed, while the yellow and brown are the natural 
color of the Vicuna and the alpaca wools. It shows the high skill reached 
by the Peruvians in the textile industry before the Spanish Conquest. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 33 

mother is referred to as skilful in spinning. Although 
early English history is full of allusions to the textile in- 
dustry, the English products could not compare with those 
of the Continent. At various times, beginning with the 
reign of William the Conqueror, who allowed Flemish 
weavers to settle at Carlisle under the protection of the 
queen, there were immigrations of skilled Flemish work- 
men caused by the Continental wars and persecutions, 
and little by little these immigrants established the higher 
industry here and there in England. 

Henry II., who reigned from 1154 to 1189, inaugurated 
the cloth fair in the churchyard of the priory of St. Bar- 
tholomew, established guilds of weavers, and granted the 
city of London the exclusive rights to export woolen cloth. 
An act passed in 1189 prohibited the mixing of Spanish 
and English wool, and another in 1197 regulated the 
dyeing of wool to be sold. Edward I. "settles his sons to 
schole and his daughters he set to woll-worke,'* and in 1279 
a petition asserts that the wool exported to Flanders was 
nearly half the land in value. 

Edward III. gave special attention to wool industries, 
bringing weavers, dyers, and fullers from Flanders, and pro- 
hibited, under pain of life and limb, the exportation of wool. 
English wool had been in great demand in Flanders, Brabant, 
and France, and was second only to Spanish wool. The 
practice of creating large sheep farms, with the consequent 
number of people thrown out of employment and the in- 
creased price of agricultural products, led in 1489 to legis- 
lation restricting sheep raising. This shows that Eng- 
land's woolen industry at this early date was an important 
one, for she was then beginning to export her woolen fabrics. 

The statute books of Edward III. and IV. and the sub- 
sequent rulers of England contain frequent references to 
wool and its manufacture. Efforts to prevent the exporta- 
tion led to much smuggling, and it was not until the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth that the free exportation of wool was 



^ 



34 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

permitted. In 1660 acts prohibiting the export of wool 
were passed again, and those remained in force until 1825. 
The impetus which the English textile industry received 
from the immigration of weavers, particularly from France, 
was undoubtedly great, and much of the skilful knowledge 
of Lancaster and Manchester and Bradford and the other 
towns in the great textile centre may be traced to the 
French weavers whom France's disastrous intolerance drove 
from home. 

Wool was the principal staple used in the English industry 
until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the in- 
X ventive genius of Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Cartwright, 
and Crompton gave such an impetus to weaving, particu- 
larly of cotton, that it was not long before cotton had 
wrested from wool its long supremacy. 



COTTON, THE PLANT, GROWTH, AND DISTRIBUTION 

"Cotton supplies nine-tenths of the material employed 
in the manufacture of clothing," said M. Jean de Hemptinne, 
of Brussels, in opening the International Congress of Cotton 
Manufacturers in Brussels in June, 1910. It is the most 
valuable of all plants, and grows generally in tropical 
and sub-tropical regions. The commercial crop for 1910, 
estimated in five hundred bales, was 18,321,000 pounds, of 
which two-thirds were grown in the United States. The 
name is derived from the Arab term qutun, and in its trans- 
mission through other languages changed into the English 
name, "cotton." 

Botanically, it belongs to the genus Gossyjnum, of the 
Malvaceae, or Mallow, order, and, excepting the caravonica- 
tree, is a small, bush-like plant with broad, three-cleft leaves 
and with seeds that grow in capsules, or bolls, surrounded 
by a soft white or cream downy fibre which can be readily 
spun. These fibres are unicellular hairs which are at- 
tached to the seed, and , each hair is the outgrowth of a 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 35 

single epidermal cell of the outer coat of the seed. Under 
the microscope these hairs, or fibres, are round when green, 
but, when dried, are flattened and twisted, not unlike an 
empty twisted fire-hose. This characteristic differentiates 
true cotton from the false flosses which have no twist, and 
also aids greatly in the spinning of the fibre. 

The best cotton has a long fibre and is known as "Sea 
Island cotton," because it is grown on the islands off the 
coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, while the 
shorter fibre cotton is grown on the mainland and is called 
upland cotton. Egyptian cotton ranks next to Sea Island 
cotton in value. Sea Island cotton originated in the Lesser 
Antilles. 

The seed is sown in April, and the fruit, or bolls, covered 
with the fibre, are gathered in September and October. 
Not alone is the cotton of value, but the seed now furnishes 
the valuable cotton-seed oil and a meal which, as a food 
for cattle, has great fat -producing qualities and is also 
rich in fertilizer, while the fibre of the inner bark is almost 
as valuable as jute. The cotton-producing countries of 
the world in the order of the value of their output are as 
follows: Southern United States, British India, Egypt, 
Russia, and Brazil. 

EARLY HISTORY 

History cannot tell us at what date cotton was first spun 
and woven into fabric; for cotton, like wool, was being 
made into clothing when history began. In different parts 
of the tropical world vegetable growths akin to cotton 
were in use in prehistoric times, and at the dawn of history 
cotton's manufacture into fabrics was already well estab- 
lished in the Orient, particularly in India and in China. 

Cotton has been for thousands of years the staple fabric 
of the East, and where warmth was required it was padded 
by the Chinese into thick garments. It was probably 
exported from India to Palestine and Egypt, where it 



36 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

became indigenous, and gave rise to flourishing ancient 
textile industries, along with flax and wool. 

An early mention of cotton is in the Bible in King 
Solomon's time, 1015 B.C. to 975 B.C. Herodotus, the father 
of history, in 445 B.C. makes the first historical mention 
of cotton. In speaking of the people of India, he says, 
"They possess likewise a kind of plant, which instead of 
fruit produces wool of a firmer and better quality than 
that of sheep: of this the Indians make their clothes." 

Cotton was brought from India by Alexander in 500 B.C., 
and from then until about the birth of Christ it was in use 
on the shores of the Mediterranean. Caesar and the Roman 
army wore clothing made of it, as did the Roman people. 
It was imported from India by the Romans, though it was 
an article of common manufacture in Upper Egypt, where 
garments were made for the Egyptian priesthood. It was 
also spun and woven on the Island of Tylos in the Persian 
Gulf and in many other parts of the Eastern world. 

Pliny, the Roman naturalist (a.d. 23-79), says that 
Egyptian priests, as well as the common people, wore cotton 
"woven into beautiful garments from down wool spun 
into thread, the wool of which was cotton growing in upper 
Egypt toward Arabia." The same authority asserts that 
the origin of the manufacturing of cottoti cloth was in the 
weaving establishments founded by Semiramis on the bank 
of the Tigris and Euphrates. 

Arab traders were the first to import it in any quantity 
to Italy and Spain. Arrian, an Egyptian Greek of the sec- 
ond century a.d., in his "Circumnavigation of the Ery- 
thraean Sea," is the first writer to mention it as an article 
of commerce. At as early a date as the first century the 
Arab traders were bringing Indian calicoes, muslins, and 
other cottons to ports on the Red Sea and thence to 
Europe. It was said of Omar, one of the caliphs of Ma- 
homet, that "he preached in a tattered cotton gown, torn 
in twelve places." 




THE COTTON PLANT 

{From F. H. Bowman's " The Structure of the Cotton Fibre," courtesy 
of The Macmillan Company) 

The leaves, the bud, the flower, and the boll of cotton, showing the cotton 
ripe in the boll ready for picking. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 37 

The first cultivation of cotton in Europe was probably 
by the Moors in Spain, in the ninth century in Valencia; 
and it continued to be raised and spun in different parts 
of Spain during the tenth century, and until the Moors 
were expelled. Fustians and dimities were first wrought 
in Spain, and from Spain the industry spread to Venice 
and to Milan in the fourteenth century. 

In the latter part of the thirteenth century Marco Polo 
speaks of cotton as vegetable wool growing on trees, and 
early engravings represent the trees with sheep's heads 
at the ends of the branches. He also states that cotton 
was manufactured in all parts of India and some parts of 
China, and was woven, even at this early date, of colored 
threads. By the fourteenth century the industry had 
begun in Venice and Milan, where the warp, though some- 
times of cotton, was usually of linen. 

Cotton was evidently known and used in England at a 
very early date, and was probably imported from the Span- 
ish Arabs. In the Wardrobe Act of 1212, twelve pence is 
mentioned as the price of a pound of cotton for stuffing the 
acton of King John, and shortly after cotton wool is de- 
scribed as being used for candlewicks. By 1430 it was 
being imported into England in large quantities, and the 
Netherlands had also a large trade in cotton with Italy 
and the Levant, and from this time on frequent mention 
is made of it in England. 

Owing to the confusion of fustians of wool with fustians 
of cotton in the early mention of the cotton industry in 
England, it is impossible to fix the exact date at which the 
manufacture of cotton began there. The earliest reference 
which has been found that fixes a date is in the will of James 
Billston, who is described as a cotton manufacturer, and 
whose will was probated at Chester, 1578. 

Another early reference to cotton is in a petition to the 
Earl of Salisbury, made presumably 1610, asking for a 
continuance of the grant for reforming frauds committed 



38 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

in the manufacture of "bombazine cotton such as groweth 
in the land of Persia, being no kind of wool." 

A petition of merchants and citizens of London engaged 
in buying and selling fustians made in England, dated 
probably 1621, shows that "divers people in this kingdom, 
chiefly county of Lancaster, for twenty years past were 
making fustians of a kind of bombast or down, being a 
fruit of the earth growing upon little shrubs or bushes, 
brought into this kingdom by Turkey merchants from 
Smyrna, Cyprus, Acra and Sydon, but commonly called 
cotton wool, and also of linen yarn, most part brought out 
of Scotland, and other some made in England, and no part 
of the same fustian of any wool at all, for which said bom- 
bast and yarn imported, his Majesty has a great yearly 
sum of money for the custom and subsidy thereof." 

It says further that "40,000 pieces of fustian were made 
in England, the subsidy coming to eight and ten pence per 
piece, and thousands of poor people worked on these 
fustians." 

In 1503 sixpence a yard was paid for russet cotton for 
the "Queen's Choare," and in the household books of Lord 
William Howard in 1612-40 both cotton and wool are men- 
tioned. Lewis Roberts, captain and merchant of London, 
speaks in his "Treasures of Traffic" in 1641 of the Turkey 
Company bringing cotton and cotton yarn from Cyprus 
and Smyrna. 

In this ancient record of trade Manchester is thus early 
depicted as the centre of a flourishing textile industry, and 
it is spoken of as buying yarn of the Irish, weaving it, and 
returning it to Ireland to sell. England had then already 
begun its export trade, buying cotton from India, Cyprus, 
and Smyrna, and making it into fustians, vermilions, 
dimities, and other stuff, and sending the surplus product 
abroad. 

The East India Company had begun the importation 
of calico from Calicut, India, in 1631; and for a long time 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 39 

it was judged to be a soft linen. In 1663 the question was 
raised what revenue tax it should bear, and Pepys's Diary, 
Feb. 27, 1663, refers to the question as follows: — 

"Sir Martin Noell told us the dispute between him as a 
farmer of the additional duty and the East India Com- 
pany, whether callico be linnen or no : which he says it is, 
having been ever esteemed so; they say it is made of cotton 
woole and grows upon trees, not like flax or hemp. But it 
was carried against the company though they stand out 
against the verdict." 

The result is not known, but the importation was small. 
The section of England about Manchester was thus early 
the seat of a growing textile industry, which was later to 
dominate the entire textile world; and the industry sprang 
up here through the settlement at an early date of the 
Flemish spinners and weavers from Flanders, who quickly 
followed in the train of William the Conqueror. Then 
again the religious persecutions in Europe during the Middle 
Age, particularly the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
in France in 1685, as we have seen, drove many thousand 
skilful Huguenot weavers to England, thus strengthening 
the English industry at dear cost to industrial France. 

Of so little importance was cotton in England that prior 
to the nineteenth century it was an insignificant article of 
commerce, and in 1736 it was regarded chiefly as an orna- 
mental plant. At the accession of George III. in 1760 the 
whole importation did not amount to more than 200,000 
pounds, and in 1782 it did not exceed 2,000,000. 



COLUMBUS AND COTTON 

The first mention of cotton in America occurs in the 
journal of Christopher Columbus, who, under date of Oct. 
12, 1492, describes the natives of Watling Island, where 
he first landed, bringing, among other things, skeins of 
cotton thread out to his ship. 



40 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

"Afterwards when we were in the ship's boats," he con- 
tinues under the same date, "they came swimming toward 
us, and brought us parrots and balls of cotton thread and 
spears, and many other things which they exchanged with 
us for other things which we gave them, such as strings of 
beads and little bells." 

Under date of Oct. 13, 1492, he says the natives were 
ready to trade for everything down to bits of broken crock- 
ery and glass. "I saw one give sixteen skeins of cotton 
for three of ceotis of Portugal, equal to one blanca of Spain, 
the skeins being as much as an arroba of cotton thread. I 
shall keep it and shall allow no one to take it, preserving it 
all for your Royal Highnesses, for it may be obtained in 
abundance. It is grown on this island, though the short 
time did not admit of my ascertaining this for a certainty." 

He subsequently found trees of cotton of sufficient fine 
quality to be woven into good cloth. He also saw handker- 
chiefs of fine cloth very symmetrically woven and worked 
in colors. Under date of October 16, he speaks of seeing, on 
the Island of Fernandina, cotton cloth made into mantles. 
Speaking again under date of October 16 of cotton, Colum- 
bus says of the natives, "Their beds and bags for holding 
things are like nets made of cotton." Here Columbus says 
they "saw married women wearing breeches made of 
cotton, but the girls do not, except some who have reached 
eighteen." 

This is especially interesting because it shows that very 
early the American natives, particularly those of the South, 
not only raised cotton, but wove it into fabrics and garments 
of various kinds. Balls of native cotton spun on distaffs 
by natives of Guiana, South America, and similar to those 
spoken of by Columbus, are to be seen in the museum at 
Georgetown, Demerara. 

Magellan found the natives of Brazil using cotton lint 
for making beds in 1519 when he circumnavigated the 
globe. Emperor Charles V. received from Hernando 




FABRICS WOVEN BY THE BAKUBA TRIBE, AFRICA 

{From the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) 

Specimens of fabrics woven by the Bakuba tribe of the Congo River 
section. Both show no evidence of contact with civiHzation. The pink 
grass cloth is of a plain weave. The black and white design, also of grass, 
has a pile like velvet. 

The plain piece is made from grass cloth, especially for chiefs. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 41 

Cortez cotton goods of different kinds from Mexico at the 
time of Cortez's conquest. They comprised cotton mantles, 
white, black and white, red, green, yellow, and blue; waist- 
coats, handkerchiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and car- 
pets of cotton, some of the colors of which were extremely 
fine. In fact, cotton was in use among the Algonquins, for 
Champlain says that the Indians whom he encountered at 
Lake Champlain July 2, 1609, wore arrow-proof doublets 
made of strips of wood bound together with cotton. 

So far as is known, the first mention of cotton growing 
in the United States proper is by De Vica, who found it in 
1536 in what is now the States of Louisiana and Texas. 
The English colonists sowed the first cotton-seed in Vir- 
ginia in 1607. In 1620 a pamphlet, called the "Declaration 
of the State of Virginia," stated that cotton wool was to be 
had there in abundance, and in 1621 cotton is quoted at 
eightpence a pound. Many travellers mention the culti- 
vation of cotton in America during the seventeenth cen- 
tury and early half of the eighteenth century. It is 
mentioned in Virginia in 1649, in South Carolina in 1664, 
1682, 1702, 1731, and 1741, and in Georgia in 1735, 1738, 
and 1749. 

It was regarded, however, as a garden plant rather than 
for domestic use in most localities except parts of South 
Carolina and Georgia, and it was not until after the Revo- 
lution that its cultivation began, as we shall see later, on a 
large, systematic scale in the South. There were two causes 
which militated against Southern cotton growing during 
this country's connection with England. The first was 
the discouragement by England of the establishment of any 
industry in this country that would compete with the 
English cotton industry; and, secondly, there were no 
means of cleaning the American cotton from the seed even 
after it was grown, so that it was only when the Revolution 
cut off trade with England that the Southern cotton 
growers, stimulated by the home demands, set about growing 



42 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

cotton systematically. The story is told in a subsequent 
chapter. 

The first manufactory of cotton in America, as well as the 
first establishment of the textile industry in America, by the 
whites occurred at Rowley in 1643, and is described by Edward 
Johnson in his book "Wonder-working Providence of Sion's 
Saviour in New England," published at London in 1654. 

It may be interesting to glance at these statistics relating 
to the cotton industry. 

The world supply of cotton for 1909 was 8,505,191,000 
pounds, of which the United States produced 5,157,691,000, 
or 60.6 per cent.; British India, 1,801,000,000; Egypt, 
455,500,000; Russia, 360,000,000; China, 300,000,000; 
Brazil, 180,000,000; and Turkey, 16,000,000. 

The value of the United States crop the same year was 
$700,000,000. Two-thhds of the crop of this country is 
sent to foreign countries. No less than 9,000,000 persons 
are employed in its production, handling, and manufacture. 
6,000,000 of those thus engaged are farmers and farm 
laborers, 1,000,000 are otherwise engaged to some extent 
in the United States, and at least 2,000,000 are employed 
in other countries in its transportation and in the manu- 
facture of which it is the basis. The capital engaged in 
the United States manufacturing industry in 1909 was 
$821,109,000, and the value of the output was $629,699,000. 
There were 1,322 establishments engaged in the manufact- 
ure, employing 387,252 persons. 

The number of cotton spindles and mill consumption of 
the world for 1910 were as follows: United States, 29,189,000 
spindles, using 4,799,000 bales; United Kingdom, 53,397,000 
spindles, using 3,372,000 bales; India, 5,657,000 spindles, 
using 1,653,000 bales; Germany, 10,200,000 spindles, using 
1,660,000 bales; Russia, 8,250,000 spindles, using 1,457,000 
bales; France, 7,100,000 spindles, using 951,000 bales; 
Japan, 2,005,000 spindles, using 1,028,000 bales; China, 
765,000 spindles, using 315,000 bales; Brazil, 1,000,000 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 43 

spindles, using 370,000 bales; and, including countries of 
minor importance, a total is reached of 134,526,000 spindles, 
using 18,321,000 bales of 500 pounds each. 

Of the number of cotton spindles in the United States 
in 1910 Massachusetts had 9,853,610, or 34 per cent, of 
the whole country; South Carolina was second, with 
3,793,387, or 13 per cent.; North Carolina was third, with 
3,124,456, or 11 per cent.; Rhode Island fourth, with 2,455,- 
304; Georgia, 1,860,905; New Hampshire, 1,350,455; Con- 
necticut, 1,332,991; New York, 1,024,114; Maine, 1,010,535. 

Massachusetts leads in the consumption of cotton. North 
Carolina is second. South Carolina third, Georgia fourth. 
New Hampshire fifth, Alabama sixth, and Rhode Island 
seventh. 

SILK 

The derivation of the term "silk" points authoritatively 
to the East as the place of origin of the most costly of all 
fabrics. It comes with various changes from Seres, the 
name given the ancient Chinese and the inhabitants of 
Eastern Asia by the Greeks, Syrians, and Persians; and in 
the Greek it took the name serikon, which in Latin became 
sericum, and by the insertion of 1 for r, in the language of 
the West, changed to selicum^ silicy and eventually silk. 

The Greeks and Romans supposed it was a woolly sub- 
stance spun from the leaves of trees, and for fifteen hundred 
years after it became known in Western Europe the opinion 
that it grew upon a tree or was obtained from the bark 
continued to be the belief. Not until the sixth century did 
two Nestorian monks, who brought silkworm eggs from 
China to Constantinople, make the truth known. 

Silk is a liquid substance secreted from their food by 
various insects of different families, but principally by the 
spider and the silkworm of the Bombycidae family. It is 
held in cells or tubes on each side of their bodies and drawn 
out through minute orifices called spinnerets. As these 



44 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

threads, from two to six in number, are pulled out, they 
harden to form a stronger thread. The thread is used by 
spiders as a method of locomotion or as a net to trap their 
prey; while others, and many of the caterpillars, weave 
it into cocoons to protect their eggs and into which they 
may withdraw when about to go into the chrysalis state, 
as in the case of the true silkworm. 

The number of insects that yield silk is very large, there 
being no less than one hundred species of the spider family. 
None except the true silkworm produces a silk that can 
be spun profitably, although the silk of the spider family 
is of most exquisite quality, and has often been used for 
making small articles of silk. The small amount of the 
product and the difficulty of controlling spiders make such 
use impracticable. 

The best silkworms are those which feed on the leaves 
of the white mulberry-tree, and go through their changes 
but once a year. The life history of the silkworm is like 
that of the whole moth family. The female, after coming 
from the cocoon, lives three or four days or a week, and 
then lays four or five hundred small whitish or yellow eggs. 
A gummy substanc'e holds them to the leaves or other 
object on which they may be laid, and, when their food 
is ready, they are hatched and at first are not over one- 
twelfth of an inch in length. They go through the various 
changes of moulting and casting their skin about four times 
in twenty or fifty days. At their full growth they are 
about three inches in length, and then they find a place 
to spin their cocoon, finishing it in three to six days and 
going into the chrysalis. In twenty to forty days the insect 
emerges from the cocoon, and in a few days is ready to lay 
her eggs. The cocoons are unravelled, reeled, carded, spun, 
doubled or redoubled, cleaned, and twisted into the thread 
for weaving or sewing. 

The greatest producer of manufactured silk is probably 
China, though no complete statistics are available; and 




Malt> moth. 




The Chinese Wild Silk Moth, 



THE EGGS, CATERPILLAR, COCOONS AND MOTH OF THE SILKWORM 

{From the Commercial Museum, Philadelphia) 

The eggs, caterpillar, cocoons, male and female moth, of the wild silk 
moth of China and Turkestan. This species produces the large amount 
of valuable wild silk of China. The caterpillars feed on oak and allied 
trees, and the species is closely related to the Yamamai of Japan and 
the Tusar of India. It is raised in a semi-domestic state in China. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 45 

second to China is the United States, for since 1905 France 
has fallen into third place; while the nations that are most 
productive of raw silk in the order of their output are China, 
Japan, and Italy. In 1909 the world produced 85,048,000 
pounds, of which China raised 35,697,000; Japan, 30,135,- 
000; Italy, 9,373,000; France, 1,486,000; Austria-Hungary, 
838,000; and British India, 513,000. The value of the 
silk manufactures of the United States for 1909 was $196,- 
475,000, capital invested was $144,799,000, and the number 
of employees was 104,261. 



EARLY HISTORY OP SILK 

Like wool, cotton, and flax, the date of the origin of silk 
is uncertain. Very early it was in use in the East, and well 
into modern times it continued to be the fabric used ex- 
clusively by the nobility, or royalty. In fact, the earliest 
historic reference has a royal setting, and comes from the 
East. According to Chinese history, silk was used in China 
thousands of years before Christ. 

The Chinese legend regarding the discovery of the use 
of silk in a "summary of the principal Chinese treatises 
upon the culture of the mulberry and the rearing of silk- 
worms," compiled and translated from Mr. Stanilas Julien's 
French edition of Chinese Treatises, printed 1836 at Wash- 
ington, D.C., is as follows: — 

"This great prince Hoang-ti was desirous that Si-ling-chi, 
his legitimate wife, should contribute to the happiness 
of his people. He charged her to examine the silkworms, 
and to test the practicability of using the thread. Si-ling- 
chi had a quantity of these insects collected, which she fed 
herself in a place prepared solely for that purpose, and dis- 
covered not only the means of raising them, but also the 
manner of reeling and of employing silk to make garments." 

"It is through gratitude to so great a benefit that pos- 
terity has deified Si-ling-chi, and rendered her particular 



46 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

honors under the name of *The Goddess of Silk- Worms.* 
To the present time it is said that the empress of China, 
on a certain day of the year, goes through the ceremony of 
feeding the silkworms and rendering homage to Si-ling-chi, 
as * Goddess of Silk-Worms.'" 

The date of this, according to Chinese chronology, was 
2700 B.C., but more accurate records make it about 2640 b.c. 
Whichever date is correct, it is certain that the manufact- 
ure of silk products goes back to a very early date. 

To the Empress Si-ling-chi the Chinese also ascribe 
the invention of the loom. It was not until the third 
century a.d. that the Japanese learned of the manufacture 
of silk through the Coreans, and then they sent Coreans 
to China to engage people to teach the art to the Japanese. 
Three Chinese girls were brought back, who taught the 
Japanese court and people the art of plain and figure 
weaving. 

The art subsequently spread to India, where it was in- 
troduced by a Chinese princess, who carried the silkworm 
eggs and seeds of the mulberry-tree concealed in the lining 
of her head-dress; and by India the silk was made known 
to Europe. For many centuries, however, the Chinese 
had a monopoly of the industry, and Tartar caravans car- 
ried loads of silk, which they sold to Persian and Arabian 
traders. 

The knowledge of silk was brought to Europe by Alex- 
ander the Great (356 to 323 B.C.) when he returned from 
India; and Aristotle gave full particulars of the silkworm, 
describing it as a horned worm which he called Bombyx. 
It passed through several transformations and produced 
Bombykia. According to Aristotle the Island of Cos was 
a flourishing seat of early silk manufacturing. 

The knowledge of silk brought by Alexander seems, 
however, to have been lost, for the Romans later obtained 
silk from the Greeks and thought that it was a fleece that 
grew upon trees. This became the early belief of the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 47 

western world. Nearchus evidently confused silk with 
cotton; Virgil supposed silk was carded from leaves; 
Dionysius thought it was combed from flowers; while 
Pliny (23-79 a.d.) describes the Bombyx, but makes it a 
native of Assyria. 

It is impossible to say when silk came into use among 
the higher classes at Rome, but there is authority for be- 
lieving that it was first worn in Rome during the supremacy 
of Julius Csesar (61-44 B.C.), and from then on became the 
dress garment of the Roman nobility. Its price was very 
high, selling for its weight in gold. Nevertheless, silk 
had such a vogue among the wealthy classes that the Em- 
peror Tiberius prohibited men from wearing it on the ground 
that it was effeminate, and Roman satirists denounced 
the wearing of the transparent silk of Cos by either sex 
because of the indecency. Emperor Heliogabalus, in 
222 A.D., shocked his subjects by appearing in a garment 
of thin silk, while Emperor Aurelian in 273 a.d. refused the 
plea of his wife for a single garment of purple silk on the 
ground of extravagance, saying that a pound of silk sold 
for its weight in gold, and that wearing it would be an 
example of extravagance. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, 380 a.d., stated that silk had 
come within the reach of the common people. A decree 
of the Emperor Justinian (518-565 a.d.), that silk should 
be sold for eight pieces of gold per pound, or about $15, 
together with a war with Persia whose traders were the 
carriers of silk, cut off all importation and ruined the silk 
merchants. 

The situation was relieved by two Persian monks, who 
had become familiar with the silk industry while on a re- 
ligious embassy to the Chinese, and who informed Justinian 
that they could secure from China the means of establishing 
the industry. Accordingly, at Justinian's command they 
returned to China, observed carefully the whole process 
of the industry, and 536 a.d. brought back to Constanti- 



48 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

nople the seeds of the mulberry-tree and the eggs of the 
silkworm concealed in hollow staves, and thus was the 
silk industry established in Europe. Byzantine silk soon 
came much in demand for ecclesiastical purposes. 

The silk industry spread from Constantinople to Thebes 
and other Grecian cities, and the Arabs and the Saracen 
princes, who obtained the knowledge of silk-making from 
the Persians, introduced it into Northern Africa, Spain, 
Portugal, and Sicily. By the tenth and eleventh centuries 
the output of Spain and Sicily was large, and workmen 
subsequently carried the industry thence to Italy. 

The conquest, by the Venetians in the twelfth century, 
of Constantinople, where the rarest kinds of silk were 
made, transferred the early European silk industry to 
Venice, whose looms then began to supply Europe. The 
principal seats of the silk manufacture in the fourteenth 
century were Lucca, Modena, Bologna, and Florence. Genoa 
also had a flourishing trade. 

By 1251 silk garments were generally used by the higher 
classes in England. A thousand knights appeared in silk 
at the marriage of Henry III.'s daughter, and silk was 
worn by the wealthiest citizens. The earliest official 
recognition of silk in England occurs in an act of Edward 
III. (1336-60) which restricted merchants to manufacture 
or trade in a single line of goods, and made imperative a 
declaration of the line they would engage in before a cer- 
tain date. Again in 1455 an act was passed prohibiting the 
importation of silk for five years. 

Although the silk trade was begun at Tours and at Lyons, 
France, in the thirteenth century, it was not until the close 
of the sixteenth century that the silk production was well 
established there. It is said that the first white mulberry- 
tree planted in France was brought there by Guipape de St. 
Aubon from Syria, about 1147, on his return from the Second 
Crusade, and was planted three leagues from Montmeliart. 
This tree was still standing in 1810. From the twelfth 




/ \ 




Fine wool fibres, magnified 300 A and B, wild African cotton; C 

times, and D, rough Peruvian magnified 

many times. 




Flax fibre x 200 diameters. 




Silk fibre x 300 diameters. A and 
B show the gum on the fibre; C, 
the clean fibre. 



ENLARGED REPRODUCTIONS OF TEXTILE FIBRES 

{From F. H. Bowman's "The Structure of the Cotton Fibre," Courtesy of The 
Macmillan Company) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 49 

century on, efforts were made by the French kings to es- 
tablish the production of silkworms and the growth of 
the mulberry-trees, but without success until the reign of 
(^ Henry of Navarre. 

This energetic monarch planted about Paris a large grove 
of mulberry-trees under the direction of Ollivier de Serres, 
a skilled agriculturist, distributed the eggs, and offered 
bounties for silk and the most productive trees. The ex- 
periment failed, and the people, irritated by the loss of 
profit, rooted up the trees, destroyed the worms, and gave 
up the industry. 

Persisting, however, the king converted a large orange 
grove on his own estate into a mulberry grove, and soon 
had a quantity of silk. His success shamed the people 
who had given up silk growing, and they resumed the work 
again under skilful teachers, and soon acquired success; 
but it had cost the king about two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. 

Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV., kept a guardian 
eye over the silk production; but the Edict of Nantes almost 
ruined the industry, as it drove almost four hundred thou- 
sand Huguenots, most of whom were engaged in the work, 
from France to England, Germany, and Switzerland, and of 
this number almost one hundred thousand went to England. 

The first efforts to start the industry in England were 
unsuccessful, but the introduction of the Italian method 
of throwing, or twisting, silk soon made it possible for Eng- 
lish silk to replace the French in the European market, and 
it was years before France regained her supremacy. Silk 
had, however, by the middle of the sixteenth century come 
into common use among the nobility in England, and Queen 
Elizabeth and her court were the first to wear silk stockings. 

"I have written into Spain for silk hose both for you and 
my lady, your wife, to whom it may please you, I may be 
remembered," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham, April 30, 1560, 
from Antwerp to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth's great 



50 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

minister, and the hose sent soon after were black. Until 
the time of Henry VIII. stockings were of ordinary cloth, 
and the king's were yard-wide taffeta. 

Sir Thomas Gresham sent Edward VI. a pair of long 
Spanish silk stockings. In the second year of Queen Bess's 
reign "her silk woman," Mistress Montague, gave the 
queen a pair she had knit of black silk for a New Year's 
gift. After the queen had worn them a few days, she was 
so pleased she sent for Mistress Montague and asked her 
"where she had them," and if she could help her to any 
more, who answered, "I made them very carefully of pur- 
pose only for your Majesty, and seeing these please you so 
well I will presently set more in hand." 

"Do so," quoth the queen, "for indeed I like silk stock- 
ings so well, because they are so pleasant, fine, and deli- 
cate, that henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings," 
and from that day she wore silk. 

Among the other weavers which the Edict of Nantes 
drove from France to England was a large number of silk 
weavers, and the manufacture of broad silks began in Eng- 
land during the reign of James I. 

Such a foothold had the industry obtained by 1701 that 
acts were passed prohibiting the importation of silk from 
France, China, Persia, and India because there were as 
good made in England. It was not until 1715 that a silk 
throwing mill was established in England. 

The silk machinery used in England until the beginning 
of the eighteenth century was crude and ineffective. Much 
of the organzine silk warp was imported from Italy. In 
1717, however, John Lombe went to Italy, and, disguised 
as a workman, secured employment in one of the mills. 
By bribing workmen, he obtained an opportunity to examine 
the machinery privately when it was not working, and thus 
learned all the details of construction. He was discovered 
eventually, and obliged to flee with his accomplices to 
England. He secured patents for fourteen years, and in 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 51 

1719 erected a silk mill on the Derwent at Derby. In 1721 
bounties were granted on home production, and in 1749 
silk from Georgia and the Carolinas was admitted free of 
duty. 

SILK INDUSTRY IN AMERICA 

Long before this efforts were made to start silk culture in 
America. Cortez in 1531 brought the mulberry-tree and 
silkworms to Mexico, where both were successfully grown, 
silk spun and woven, and sent to Europe. By the end of 
the century, however, the industry had ceased. 

The visionary James I. of England became very much 
interested in the cultivation of silk in Virginia, and in 
1619 ordered the shipment of silkworms to that colony, 
urging their cultivation in place of tobacco, offering bounties 
for the silk produced, and placing penalties for the failure 
to plant mulberry-trees. The next year saw the industry 
established, and it continued thriving moderately under 
the stimulus of premiums offered by the Colonial Assembly 
until 1666, when the bounty was withdrawn. The culture 
rapidly decreased and soon was abandoned. 

At one time the Assembly offered ten thousand pounds 
of tobacco to the planter who would export two hundred 
pounds of raw silk or cocoons in a single year, five thousand 
pounds of tobacco to the producer of one thousand pounds 
of raw silk, and four thousand pounds of tobacco to any 
planter who would devote himself exclusively to silk raising. 

It is not known that the premiums were ever earned. 
Some silk was sent abroad, and there is a tradition that one 
of the King Charles of England had a robe made of it. Even 
after the culture of silk was abandoned in Virginia, there are 
stories of men appearing in silk waistcoats or with hand- 
kerchiefs of their own raising, or ladies appearing in a 
gown of native grown silk. 

The failure of Virginia seemed only to spur on some of 
the other colonies to engage in silk culture, and the other 



52 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

colonial governments offered various inducements for the 
spread of the industry. By 1712 the colonial exports 
averaged five hundred pounds annually. In 1732 Georgia's 
colonial government allotted a piece of ground as a nur- 
sery for white mulberry-trees, and granted lands to settlers 
on condition they plant one hundred white mulberry-trees 
on every ten acres cleared. 

The result was that in 1735 Governor Oglethorpe took 
eight pounds of silk to England which was used as a dress 
for Queen Caroline. The industry became established in 
South Carolina in the same year, and in 1762 began in 
Connecticut, although as long before as 1734 the Connecti- 
cut General Assembly had passed an act for the encourage- 
ment of silk raising, which was to continue in force for ten 
years. 

The removal by the English government in 1749 of all 
duties on silk imported from Georgia or Carolina led to 
increased importations, and by 1759 large quantities of 
raw silk were being sent by the colonies to England, often 
commanding higher prices there than the best Italian silk. 

A reeling establishment was founded at Savannah in 
1750, and the good quality of the Georgia silk was doubt- 
less due to a visit made the year before by Signor Otto- 
lengi, an Italian expert, who was sent to Georgia to establish 
a silk filature for reeling, doubling, cleaning, and twisting 
the silk. The quantity of the cocoons received at the fila- 
ture was so great that in 1759 the export of raw silk from 
Georgia exceeded ten thousand pounds, and the quality 
was so good as to bring three shillings more per pound in 
London than any other silk in the world. The silk culture 
reached its height in Georgia in 1759, and by 1772 had 
practically ceased. It was not long before cotton had 
driven silk culture from the South. 

Half an ounce of mulberry seed was sent to every parish 
in Connecticut in 1766, and for a time the legislature of- 
fered a bounty on mulberry-trees and raw silk. A piece of 



h5 ^ 



§ > 
- S 




THE STORY OF TEXTILES 53 

mantua, 60 yards in length, was spun and woven from her 
own cocoons in 1770 by Mrs. Susanna Wright at Columbia, 
Pa., and afterwards worn as a court dress by the Queen of 
England. By about the middle of the eighteenth century 
Philadelphia had become an important seat of the industry. 

During the Revolution the silk industry languished, and 
all manufacture ceased, except enough to supply a small 
local demand. Hardly had the Revolution ended before the 
industry sprang up with great vigor under the impetus of 
bounties. Mansfield, Conn., had become an important silk- 
raising section in the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
and here, in 1810, the first silk mill in America was set up, 
as we shall see later. >. 

In 1785 a company was formed in Connecticut for the 
culture of silk, and also its manufacture. The company 
which was formed at Mansfield and incorporated in 1789 
was called "The Directors, Inspectors, and Company of 
Connecticut Silk Manufacturers." It included the names 
of many who are the ancestors of the successful silk manu- 
facturers of to-day. ' 

As the quality of American silk did not keep pace with the 
Italian, being too fine, uneven, and often defective in color, 
it became, about 1800, diflScult to find a market for it, al- 
though by this time silk had become an article of domestic 
manufacture in the East, many families making their five, 
ten, and fifty pounds of silk annually. The silk production 
was greater in Connecticut and Pennsylvania than else- 
where, though New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- 
land, and Virginia also produced all of the domestic silk. 
The silk was badly reeled on a hand loom and roughly spun 
on the large wheel used for spinning wool. By 1810 New 
London, Windham, and Tolland Counties, Connecticut, 
were turning out $28,503 worth annually, and half as much 
more of the waste silk. 

Much of the success of the early industry was due to 
Edmund Golding, an English throwster, who came to 



54 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

America in 1827 when he was but seventeen. He met 
Alfred Lilly, whom he told of his previous occupation, and 
who became interested in him. Golding made sketches 
of the silk machines used in England, and finally Mr. Lilly, 
Captain Joseph Conant, William A. Fiske, William Atwood, 
Storrs Hovey, and Jesse Bingham formed a copartnership, 
in 1827-28, under the name Mansfield Silk Company, to 
install and operate machines for making silk. Lilly took 
charge of procuring the machinery, much of which he made 
in his own shop and obtained some from regular machinists. 
It was put in operation under the direction of Golding. A 
building and power was subsequently obtained in Gurley- 
ville, and this mill was the first in America where the man- 
ufacture of silk was commercially successful. 

The first silk mill in America, however, was probably 
that erected in 1810 by Rodney and Horatio Hanks, at 
Mansfield, where an effort was made, in a building 12 X 12 
feet, to make sewing silk and twist by machinery they had 
made. But it was not practical. Great difficulties were 
encountered by the Mansfield Silk Company, as the ma- 
chinery was crude, and was not adapted to silk as it was 
then reeled in America. In order to compete with Italian 
sewing silk, the promoters had to import raw silk from 
England. 

In 1829 the Mansfield Silk Company was incorporated, 
and thus public attention was directed to it. Among the 
visitors was a Mr. Brown, an Englishman, who explained 
the process of reeling and showed how to construct the 
right kind of a reel. It was very successful, and American 
silk was found to be of superior quality and became much 
in demand, mulberry nurseries being established by the 
company in all the adjoining States. Nathan Rixford 
made several improvements upon Golding's machines, and 
for some years was the principal builder of silk machinery. 
The Mansfield Company was not a success, and was finally 
dissolved in 1839. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 55 

The Connecticut legislature offered a bounty in 1832 for 
mulberry culture, and fixed the price of raw silk at fifty 
cents a pound. Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania soon offered similar bounties. Mr. Golding, 
with Messrs. Salmon Storrs & Son, later built another mill 
at Mansfield and equipped it with Rixford machinery. It 
was successful for more than ten years. 

The first successful silk dyers in the United States were 
Edward Vallentine and Lewis Leigh, who had emigrated 
from England in 1838. Many processes were improved 
by them. Vallentine commenced business at Gurleyville, 
Conn., and gained a wide reputation by the use of new 
colors and a permanent black. In 1839-40 he moved his 
business to Northampton, and died about 1851. 

The first silk mill in Paterson, N.J., was set up by 
Christopher Colt, Jr., in 1838, on the fourth floor of Samuel 
Colt's pistol factory. The first loom for weaving piece 
goods was built in 1842 by Mr. John Ryle, the father of 
the present silk industry in America, who started in Pat- 
erson, N.J., in 1840. To-day Paterson is the centre of the 
American silk industry. The real establishment of Ameri- 
can supremacy in silk manufacturing dates from 1860, and 
was the result of French silks being admitted to English 
markets free of duty. As the English silk throwsters and 
weavers were forced from their own market, they came 
here, bringing their skill and machinery with them, and 
many settled at Paterson. The industry was further 
favored by the tariff of 1861 and later by the import duty, 
which ranged from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent. The story 
of Paterson is told more fully later. 

Manufacturing began at Philadelphia in 1815, and in 
1824 the Jacquard loom was first used there. By 1830, 
3,200 pounds of silk were raised in Mansfield, and in the 
same year the Chinese mulberry-tree was introduced be- 
cause of its rapid growth and abundant leaves. Previous 
to this silkworms in the United States had been fed 



56 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

on white mulberry-trees. In 1838 power loom weaving 
began. 

An unsuccessful manufactory of silk ribbons from Amer- 
ican silk was started in 1829 at Baltimore, but came to 
a speedy end. John McHae began making silk fringes, 
tassels, and braids in New York City in 1830. 

The beginning of the silk industry at Florence, Mass., 
was in 1832, when the "Old Oil Mill," which for over a cen- 
tury had stood as a grist-mill on the Mill River, under the 
direction of Samuel Whitmarsh, an early silk enthusiast, 
was equipped as a silk mill, with machinery made by Nathan 
Rixford. The New York & Northampton Silk Company 
was formed in 1833-34, and among those who took stock 
in the new company were Augustus and Samuel Russell, 
who had established the firm of Russell & Co., the foremost 
American trading house in China. 

A brick building was erected and acres stocked with mul- 
berry-trees to supply worms for the raw silk. Mr. Whit- 
marsh even had two hothouses, one hundred feet long, 
attached to his house at Northampton for raising mulberry- 
trees in winter. Whitmarsh became president of the com- 
pany. Watch ribbons and satin vests were made: some of 
the heavy black vests were presented to Henry Clay, Daniel 
Webster, and A. A. Lawrence, who had shown interest in 
the enterprise. 

"I shall make $250,000 before next winter," said Mr. 
Whitmarsh in the summer of 1839 to John Ryle, who later 
became the father of the Paterson silk industry and was 
then a weaver in Whitmarsh's employ. Before winter 
the company had failed, and Whitmarsh had neither money 
nor credit. Although over a hundred thousand dollars was 
sunk by the company, it eventually paid its debts. 

In 1835 the Connecticut Silk Manufacturing Company 
was formed at Hartford, Christopher Colt being president 
and largest stockholder. The company collapsed in 1838. 
Soon after 1844 the Nonatuck Silk Company was organized 




F^ 1. 




.^^ 



THE MULE 

{According to Richard Guest) 

Figure 1. — A, the roving; B, the first pair of rollers; C, the second pair, 
revolving quicker than the first. The roving and rollers are placed on a 
fixed frame. D, movable carriage on which the spindles stand. This car- 
riage recedes from the fixed frame when drawing out the yarn and returns to 
it when the yarn is copped, or wound upon the spindles. E, a spindle. 
The spindles are turned by strings from a drum, each string turning two 
spindles. F, the drop rod. 

Figure 2. — GGG, the fixed frame on which stands HH. The second pair 
of rollers represented at C. II, the movable carriage; K, the spindles; 
L, the drop rod. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 57 

at Florence, with S. L. Hinckley as president and S. L. 
Hill as treasurer, and since has grown into the plant which 
makes the famous Corticelli brand of sewing silk. 

To the genius and persistence of the Cheney Brothers 
was due the establishment of the silk industry at South 
Manchester and Hartford, Conn. They were sons of a 
farmer, and while boys had become interested in the rais- 
ing of silkworms. Two became skilful artists, another 
became a merchant in Providence, while others continued 
to farm. 

Ward, Rush, Frank, and Ralph Cheney in January, 1838, 
started at South Manchester the Mount Nebo Silk Mills, 
establishing also orchards, cocooneries, and a magazine 
called the Silk Growers' Manual, which lasted from July, 
1838, to July, 1840. After a short time the mill closed, 
but about 1841 was reopened with new machinery. Sewing 
silk, twist, ribbon, handkerchiefs, and later broad goods 
were made, and soon spun silk was being fashioned into 
pongees and handkerchiefs. Under the beneficial effect of 
the Civil War tariff the brothers were able to establish 
themselves as makers of the cheapest and most serviceable 
silks of their kind on the market. The mill was built at 
Hartford in 1854, and since the firm of Cheney Brothers 
has grown into the leading firm of its kind in America. 

The silk industry of William Skinner dates from 1848, 
when he went from Holyoke and established his mills at 
Northampton. In 1854 he moved to Haydenville and 
built his Unquomonk Silk Mills, which were among the 
largest in Connecticut. They were swept away May 16, 
1874, by the bursting of the Williamsburg Reservoir on the 
Mill River. One hundred and forty-eight lives were lost, 
and a million dollars' worth of property, including all of 
the town of Skinnerville, as the village where the mill was 
located was called. He started again at Holyoke, and the 
firm has become one of the best known in the country. 

A disastrous silk speculation broke out in the Eastern 



58 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

States in 1836. Cuttings two feet long sold from $25 to 
$500 per hundred. All kinds of crops were displaced to 
make room for it: one nurseryman ordered 5,000,000 trees 
from France, sending $80,000 in advance payment. After 
running madly for three years, the speculation collapsed, 
so that in 1840 trees were sold for five cents each, thousands 
were ruined, and the silk industry checked for years. 

The high price of labor has hampered production of 
raw silk in the United States, so that it has not kept pace 
with the manufacture. Much of the raw silk comes from 
China, Japan, Bengal, and other parts of the East, where 
labor is cheap. An attempt was made in 1854 to raise 
silk in California. Blight of the mulberry-trees has, how- 
ever, prevented successful silkworm culture in the United 
States, and to-day practically all of the raw silk used by 
the United States is imported. 



CHAPTER III 

FACTORY SYSTEM 

GROWTH OF THE FACTORY SYSTEM — EARLIEST RECORD OF ENGLISH 
FACTORY — ENGLISH NAMES DERIVED FROM INDUSTRY — CAUSES 
OF THE CONCENTRATION IN LANCASTER — SEPARATION OF AGRI- 
CULTURE AND SPINNING AND WEAVING EARLY RELATIONSHIP 

OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE — INVENTIONS AND THE FACTORY 
SYSTEM — INFLUENCE OF FACTORY ON ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE 

It is not easy to find in ancient or mediaeval history any 
perfect parallel to the factory system as we understand it 
and as it developed in England and in America. The mod- 
ern conception of a factory — a place where products are 
produced by power for commercial use — had no existence 
prior to the invention of the steam-engine save in a very 
primitive way. Here and there we find organizations of 
workmen producing goods jointly for commercial use, but 
very few traces of machines are to be found save in the 
production of primitive textiles. There were, it is true, 
ancient guilds just as there were mediaeval guilds. We 
know scarcely anything of the working of the ancient 
guilds, but our knowledge of the mediaeval guilds is some- 
what comprehensive. These had full and even despotic 
control, a completeness of organization with which the 
modern trade union is entirely unfamiliar. They fixed 
often not only prices, but conditions of work, and in some 
instances there grew up within the industrial centres con- 
trolled by these mediaeval guilds industries in which men 
collectively worked at the production of commercial prod- 
ucts. And here we can find traces of the factory system, 
at least as far as the collective labor of workmen is con- 
cerned. But the factory system as we now understand it 



60 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

was the offspring of the centralization of industry brought 
about by a combination of three factors, — the growing skill 
of operatives, the combination of capital, and the use of 
machinery; but, as the industry of the ancient and medi- 
seval world lacked steam-driven machinery, it never at- 
tained the true factory system. 

Nevertheless, an embryonic factory system existed among 
the Romans in the time of the Caesars, and is described by 
Ferrero. He says "that it was the duty of a woman, if 
she was nobly born, to know all the arts of good house- 
keeping, and especially, as most important, spinning and 
weaving. The reason for this lay in the fact that for 
aristocratic families, who were in possession of vast lands 
and many flocks, it was easy to provide themselves from 
their own estates with the wool necessary to clothe all 
their household, from masters to the numerous retinue of 
slaves. If the materfamilias knew sufficiently well the 
arts of spinning and weaving to be able to organize in the 
home a small factory of slaves engaged in such tasks, and 
knew how to direct and supervise them, to make them work 
with zeal and without theft, she could provide the clothing 
for the whole household, thus saving the heavy expense 
of buying stuffs from a merchant, — notable economy in 
times when money was scarce, and every family tried to 
make as little use of it as possible." 

A mediaeval trace of the factory system may also be found 
among the silk throwsters in Italy, where craftsmen in the 
industry congregated in certain localities. Although the 
beginning of the factory system was an early specialization 
of parts of the industry in the hands of different persons, 
its growth and development were slow until the manu- 
facture of cotton became a leading industry, and the in- 
vention of the steam-engine and textile machinery so greatly 
increased the production. 



Wr- } 




ANCIENT EGYPTIANS SPINNING AND WEAVING 

(From an old print) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 61 

EARLIEST RECORD OF ENGLISH FACTORY 

The first industry of which there is any record in England 
that might be called a "factory system" was run by John 
Winchcombe, popularly known as "Jack of Newbury." 
So famous did he become that he entertained Henry VIII. 
and his first wife Catherine in his Newbury home. Winch- 
combe, who died in 1520, is described in Fuller's "Worthies" 
as "the most considerable clothier without fancy or fiction 
England ever beheld. His looms were his lands, whereof 
he kept one hundred in his house, each managed by a man 
and a boy." 

So great was the fame of his factory that it was described 
in the following poetic lines written while his firm was still 
a household word in fashionable London: — 

"Within one room, being large and long, 
There stood two hundred looms full strong; 
Two hundred men, the truth is so, 
Wrought in these looms all in a row; 
By every one a pretty boy 
Sat making quills with mickle joy. 
And in another place hard by 
A hundred women merrily 
Were carding hard with joyful cheer 
Who singing sat with voices clear; 
And in a chamber close beside 
Two hundred maidens did abide. 



These pretty maids did never fin. 
But in their place all day did spin! 

Then to another room came they 
Where children were in poor array, 
And every one sat picking wool. 
The finest from the coarse to cull; 
The number was seven score and ten. 
The children of poor silly men. 



62 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Within another place Hkewise 
Full fifty proper men he spied. 
And these were sheer men every one 
Whose skill and cunning there was shown ! 



A dye-house likewise he had then 
Wherein he kept full forty men; 
And also in his fulling mill 
Full twenty persons kept he still.'' 



As Thomas Fuller says, in his "History of the Worthies 
of England": "Well may his house make sixteen clothiers' 
houses, whose wealth would amount to six hundred of their 
estates. He built the church of Newbury from pulpit 
westward to the tower inclusively, and died about 1520. 
Some of his name and kindred of great wealth still remain." 
In the expedition to Flodden Field against James, King 
of Scotland, he marched with one hundred of his own men, 
"as well armed and better clothed than any, to show that 
the painful to use their hands in peace could be valiant 
and employ their arms in war." 

At first fabrics were a by-product of agriculture in 
England, for the farm homestead was the seat of the textile 
industry. The males of the household raised the flocks, 
while the females spun the yarn and wove the fabrics; 
and so the industry throve and prospered for hundreds of 
years, giving occupation and income to thousands of the 
agricultural class. As time went on, the farmers of certain 
sections, particularly about Bury, Oldham, Preston, Man- 
chester, and Chester, became the more expert in the art, 
and soon the beginning of the factory system appears in a 
separation of spinning from weaving, the two originally 
being done by one person. And little by little there came 
a further differentiation of work in the process not only of 
manufacturing, but also of merchandising the product, and 
this has left its trace in many English names. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 63 



ENGLISH NAMES DERIVED FROM INDUSTRY 

To the old occupation go back many names which origi- 
nally indicated the part their bearer performed in the tex- 
tile industry. Thus the name of Shepard, which with 
variations of spelling is a common one, may be traced to 
the shepherd or sheepherd, who cared for the flocks, and 
the names Shearer, Sheerman, Shurman, and the like, came 
from the man who sheared or clipped the sheep. 

So also the names Stapler, Wool, Wooler, Woolman, or 
Wollsey were derived from the merchant to whom the wool 
was sold; and the carrying it from place to place originated 
those of Carter, Packer, or Carrier. The wool was turned 
over to Carders and Combers, Kempers, or Kemsters, and 
passed next to Spinners, and then to Weavers, Weevers, 
Webbs, Webbers, or Websters. The nap was brought out 
by "teasing," by the Teasers, Tosers, Teaslers, or Taylors, 
and then dyed by the Dyer, Litter, or Lister. 

The fulling or shrinking process was done by the Fullers, 
FuUertons, FuUersons, or Fullmans, assisted by the Walkers, 
who trod it with their feet, while it was beaten with bats 
and mallets by the Beaters, Beatermans, Bates, Batteman. 
In time the special work in which the workmen showed 
special skill gave them the names by which they and their 
descendants have been known. 



CAUSES OF THE CONCENTRATION IN LANCASTER 

The unpleasant climatic conditions of Manchester and 
the surrounding towns near the Irish Sea, affording the right 
degree of humidity for the best linen and cotton manu- 
facture, made the section ideal for textile work and not so 
suitable for agriculture or outdoor work. So it was that 
the farmers thereabouts early turned their attention to 
spinning and weaving cotton. 

As early as 1641 the people of Manchester were "in the 



64 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

habit of buying linen yarn from the Irish, and, after weaving 
it, returning it for sale in a finished state. They also bought 
cotton-wool that came from Smyrna to work into fustians 
and dimities.'* These fustians, with tuckings, tapes, etc., 
made the staple trade of Manchester in the early part of 
the seventeenth century. 

An eye-witness, writing about 1770, says: "The land in 
our township [Mellor] was occupied by between fifty and 
sixty farmers, and out of those fifty or sixty there were 
only six or seven who raised their rent directly from the 
produce of their farms. All the rest got their rent partly 
in some branch of trade, such as cotton or linen or spinning 
and weaving woolen.'* 



SEPARATION OF AGRICULTURE AND SPINNING AND WEAVING 

At this period many of the farmers of Lancashire were 
engaged wholly in spinning and weaving, save during the 
few weeks of harvest. And soon "there were a number 
of master [cotton-linen, fustian] manufacturers, as well 
as many weavers who worked for manufacturers and at 
the same time were holders of land or farmers.'* 

A few cottagers held no land and worked for manu- 
facturers, but many held small pieces of land and worked 
for themselves. The situation had thus assumed a phase 
in which farming had become wholly subordinate to the 
textile industry, although most of the weavers occupied 
small parcels of land for which they were able to pay high 
rents by combining a little farming with much spinning 
and weaving. 

This relation between agriculture and the textile industry 
continued in a lessening degree until well into the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century. From the beginning 
of the last quarter of the eighteenth century the growth of 
the factory system became more and more pronounced. 
The development first showed itself in a severance of the 




BOWING OF COTTON, AS PRACTISED IN INDIA AND CHINA 




A HINDU WOMAN SPINNING COTTON YARN ON THE PRIMITIVE 
WHEEL OF INDIA 



{Both illustrations from an old print) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 65 

agricultural connection through the concentration of the 
weavers in hamlets and towns, and this was brought about 
by the higher skill required by the finer fabrics which were 
more and more in demand. As early as 1727 Dapiel Defoe 
could write of Manchester, "The grand manufacture which 
has so much raised the tovm is that of cotton in all its 
branches." 

It was soon learned that the rough work of farming 
made the hands of the weaver less skilful, and the weaver 
found also the needed ability required close application, 
and that much could be gained from the study of the work 
of other weavers. 

As the looms became more complicated with the im- 
provements that inventive genius added, considerable 
mechanical work was often called for, and this necessitated 
being near a mechanic. Then, too, as the spinners and 
weavers began clustering together, the buyers of fabrics 
turned to these centres for their goods, so that it became 
easier to find a market for one's goods when one was part 
of a community of weavers than when one lived at a dis- 
tance. 

The fact that since the introduction of the industry in 
England a portion of the artisans did nothing but spin and 
weave, and were early associated in guilds, doubtless had 
a decided influence in bringing about a separation of the 
two occupations, — the textile industry and farming. 

EARLY RELATIONSHIP OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE 

How early the relationship of employer and employee 
sprang up it is impossible to determine, but there is little 
doubt that to a slight degree it was in existence from the 
earliest days. 

The old apprenticeship system, too, had its place in fixing 
the relations between employer and employee. The ap- 
prentice generally lived with his employer, and thus came 



66 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

in closest contact not only with his mode of life, but his 
method of business management. And thus, when the ap- 
prentice set up for himself, he perpetuated the system of 
business under which he was trained. 

Contemporaneous with the growth of the factory system 
was the greater development of the relation of employer 
and employee. While there always was a time when em- 
ployer and employee existed, from the first part of the 
eighteenth century the system grew rapidly, and was given 
additional impetus by the increased demand for better 
fabrics and the growing costliness of the complicated ma- 
chinery which was invented. 

By 1740 spinning was being done largely by separate 
artisans, who were rapidly constituting a distinct class from 
the weavers; and both classes were furnishing many journey- 
men, who were working in small shops for others or were 
being paid by the piece for what they made from material 
supplied by Manchester merchants. Still others brought 
their own raw material, and sold the finished products 
to the growing merchant class. This class of small jour- 
neymen manufacturers was eventually driven out, as the 
growth of the industry required more and more capital, 
and the consumer and producer were brought more closely 
together by organizations of capital. At first most weavers 
constructed and owned their looms. Later many hired 
them, and in some places lodgings were let with a loom, 
just as to-day lodgings are let with a piano. 

As merchants began to call for different kinds of fabrics, 
it became the custom for the masters to provide reeds that 
ranged in fineness with the fineness of the loom, and also 
to furnish the other changeable parts. Another step toward 
the control of the industry by the holders of capital or the 
merchant class was the supplying of the warp by the Man- 
chester merchants. The lack at first of the water frame 
precluded the spinning of the warp of cotton of sufficient 
strength for weaving, and warps were therefore of either 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 67 

linen or wool and made by hand either in the neighborhood 
or were imported from Germany, Ireland, or Scotland. 
Until warping mills were introduced, the weaver prepared 
the warp for the loom; but, after warping mills sprang up, 
the merchants supplied them ready for the loom. This 
specialization of work was largely supported by the mer- 
chants, who also could judge what warps would be re- 
quired by their fabrics, and were better able to judge the 
amount of goods needed. This change, from that of the 
weaver supplying or buying his own warp to that of the 
merchant furnishing the warp to the weaver making his 
cloth, took place about 1740, and led to the firm establish- 
ment of warping mills, which, however, existed in limited 
numbers during the seventeenth century. 

Concerning the weft, it was found best by the merchants 
to give the weaver full responsibility for his yarn. The 
cotton wool was therefore furnished, and women and chil- 
dren cleaned, carded, and spun the cotton in their homes. 
Dealers who attempted to supply the yarn ready for the 
weft found that the spinners could hide defects which often 
gave the weavers excuse for the production of inferior 
goods. And frequently weavers placed the responsibility 
for poor work upon defects they claimed existed in the weft. 

"Willowing" was the name given the cleaning process, 
and it was so called because the cotton spread on a light 
hammock of cords, called the bowstring, was beaten with 
willow switches. The process dated back to prehistoric 
times. Cotton for fine spinning was carefully washed, and 
was always soaked with water and dried so that the fibres 
would cling together. 

As the weaving became more complicated and arduous, 
men early took the place of women, who cast the shuttle 
from hand to hand, as was done from remote time. In the 
making of broadcloths two weavers were required, as the 
distance was greater than one man could stretch. 

All of these factors were working toward the creation of 



68 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the factory system as now understood. But the greatest 
factor was the invention of the steam-engine, of the fly 
shuttle, the spinning jenny, the mule, and the power loom, 
all of which made possible the production of fabrics on a 
scale which necessitated many artisans under one direction 
and the employment of larger capital than weavers could 
supply. 

INVENTIONS AND THE FACTORY SYSTEM 

The era of invention brought about a more rapid devel- 
opment of the factory system as well as greatly increased 
concentration of the industry in the centres where it was 
already established. 

The father of John Kay, who invented the fly shuttle, 
had a woolen manufactory at Colchester early in 1700, 
and already manufacturing in mills was in process in other 
parts of England. A great impetus was given the movement 
by Richard Arkwright, who has been called the father of 
the factory system. It was to his executive and financial 
ability, quite as much as to the inventive genius he dis- 
played in the improvement of the spinning frame, that this 
was due. The first practical cotton mill in the world was 
erected by him in 1769 at Nottingham and was turned by 
horses. One had already been built in 1764 by James 
Hargreaves, who invented the spinning jenny, but it was 
not practical. 

Water power was already beginning to supply the power 
to the few mills in existence, and in 1771 Arkwright erected 
a new mill at Cromford, which was turned by the river 
Derwent, and was supplied with a cylinder card machine 
and a spinning frame, which could roll as well as spin, and 
which was called a water frame from the power that sup- 
plied it. 

The machines thus grouped at Cromford made it possible 
for the first time to accomplish the whole operation of cotton 
spinning in one mill, the first machine receiving the cotton 




DOMESTIC FLAX WHEEL 

An old German invention, commonly called the Saxony, or Leipzig, wheel. 
In some instances two spindles were attached to the same wheel, enabling 
the spinner to form a thread with each hand. 




HINDU SPINNING AND WEAVING 

{Both illustrations from old prints) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 69 

wool as it came from the pod, and the last winding the 
cotton, twisted in firm hard yarn upon the bobbins. The 
labor used was largely juvenile, as it was found that chil- 
dren were more dexterous in tying the broken ends at the 
rollers, their small and sensitive fingers being more adapted 
for the work. 

Arkwright's invention, together with Crompton's, gave 
the cotton industry a great boom, and factories sprang 
up everywhere in Lancashire, changing the rural aspect 
of the land into a collection of tall chimneys, brick buildings, 
and city streets. Everywhere operatives became merely 
the employees of the masters of capital. 

Cartwright's invention of the power loom in 1785-86 
further accelerated the spread of the factory system, as 
it brought spinning and weaving again under one roof. 

Then there was also the application for the first time in 
1785 of Watt's steam-engine to cotton manufacturing. It 
is interesting to note here that the first electric-driven 
spinning mule in Lancashire was that of the Acme Spinning 
Company's at Pendlebury, and was started 1895. Power 
was supplied from Outwood, five miles distant. Of the 
2,000,000 horse-power now used in the textile mills of the 
United States, 500,000 is produced by electricity. 



INFLUENCE OF FACTORY ON ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE 

No less than one hundred and forty-three water mills in 
1788 were making cotton in Lancashire, Derbyshire, Notting- 
ham, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, and were rapidly in- 
creasing. The adjustment of the factory system to English 
life during the last years of the eighteenth century and the 
first years of the nineteenth century led to much trouble, in 
which property was destroyed and riots occurred. In fact, 
Carlyle in his essay on Chartism depicts the miseries that 
involved the handicraft workers when machinery came into 
use. Thousands were thrown out of employment in the 



70 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

crowded textile centres, and much suffering occurred, which 
led to the smashing of machines and the wrecking of mills, 
and it was some years before the factory system became a 
smooth part of the mechanism of England's industrial life. 

The influence of the factory on social conditions in Eng- 
land is admirably described in Lincoln's monograph on "The 
Factory." At first in England the factory towns were sinks 
of unhealthy conditions. Not alone was refuse allowed to 
accumulate on the streets, but conveniences of the most 
primitive kind were lacking. A workingman's family lived 
mainly upon tea, bread, and boiled potatoes, to which occa- 
sionally meat of some kind was added. The members of 
a family ate from a common dish, more like animals than 
human beings. They were packed in unsanitary homes 
where domestic comfort was a stranger, and squalor and 
debauchery were common. Few over forty years old were 
fit for work, and it was only when Parliament took cogni- 
zance of the conditions and public opinion began to assert 
an influence that the terrible concomitants of the factory 
were removed. 

It had this effect upon England. Finding the people 
divided primarily into two classes, dependants, or serfs, and 
the upper classes, it created from the dependent class the 
great middle class. In many cases, tradesmen and manu- 
facturers were lifted into the nobility and an interest cre- 
ated in political affairs on the part of the working classes 
that did not exist before. It found England a nation of 
agriculturists and made it an empire of world traders. 

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the factory 
system under the control of capital was firmly established, 
and here we shall leave it and consider briefly the era of 
invention which so greatly developed the textile industry 
during the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth 
centuries. 



CHAPTER IV 

ERA OF INVENTION 

ERA OF INVENTION — EARLY IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY 

JOHN KAY — PAUL AND WYATT — ^JAMES HARGREAVES — RICHARD 

ARKWRIGHT — SAMUEL CROMPTON — EDMUND CARTWRIGHT IN- 
VENTIONS OF KNITTING MACHINES — IPSWICH MILLS — JOSEPH 
MARIE CHARLES JACQUARD — MACHINES FOR SPINNING FLAX — 
JAMES WATT — ELI WHITNEY — IMPROVEMENTS OF THE BASIC 
MACHINES, AND FURTHER INVENTIONS — BLEACHING — DYEING — 
PRINTING MERCERIZING PROCESS 

The use of the distaff and spindle was the first step 
in the invention of textile machinery, and began at so 
very remote a time it is impossible to fix it. Earliest 
records on stone, brick, papyrus, of the Assyrians, Baby- 
lonians, and Egyptians, picture the use of the rock, or 
distaff, and the spindle, and Solomon, Homer, and Herodotus 
frequently allude to it. The distaff is said to have been 
introduced into England by Anthony Bonvoise, an Italian, 
during the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VIII., and then 
began the making of Devonshire kerseys and Coxal cloths. 

The spindle, as it has been from time immemorial, was 
a round stick of wood about a foot long, which tapered at 
each end. A ring of stone or clay, or sometimes potato, 
girded the upper part of it to give it steadiness and mo- 
mentum when it revolved. At the extreme upper end there 
was a notch, or slit, into which the yarn was caught. The 
distaff, or rock, was a longer, stouter stick, around one end 
of which, in a loose ball, the material to be spun was wound. 

The spinner either fixed the other end of the rock in her 
girdle or carried it under her left arm, so that the coil of 
material was in a convenient position to draw out to form 



72 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the yarn. The end of the yarn, after being prepared, was 
inserted in the notch, and the spinner set the spindle in 
motion by quickly rolling it with the right hand against the 
right leg, and thus throwing it out, spinning in the air. 
Meanwhile the spinner drew from the rock with the left 
hand an additional supply of fibre, which was formed by 
the right hand into a uniform and equal strand. After 
the yarn was sufficiently twisted, it was released from the 
notch and wound around the lower part of the spindle, and 
again fixed in the notch at the point insufficiently twisted. 
Thus the rotating, twisting, and drawing operations went 
on until the spindle was full. In this way, spinning was 
practised in prehistoric and ancient times. And in the 
self -same way it is to-day done in some remote sections of 
Scotland. Yarns of greatest fineness and strength are 
still spun in this way. 

The first improvement in this method of spinning was 
the construction of the hand wheel, in which the spindle, 
mounted in a frame, was fixed horizontally, and rotated 
by a band passing around a large wheel set in the frame- 
work. Such a wheel has been used from prehistoric times 
in the East, but was not introduced into Europe until about 
the fourteenth century. 

The earliest manuscript that mentions the spinning wheel 
was written in the fourteenth century, and is in the British 
Museum. This wheel was evidently one at which a woman 
stood, for that which came into general use is said to have 
been invented in 1533 by a citizen of Brunswick, and was 
the first wheel at which a woman could sit. Other improve- 
ments enabling one to spin with a treadle movement, and 
thus allowing the spinner to work with both hands free, 
Were added at later dates that cannot be fixed. Thus 
came into use the spinning wheel as our forbears used it 
in the homespun industries of New England and as it is 
still used in the isolated rural districts of Ireland, Scotland, 
and Europe. 







HINDU WEAVER AT HIS LOOM 

(From an old woodcut) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 73 

It was not long before every woman in England spun, 
and terms of the industry had become a part of the language. 
Thus spear side and distaff side of the house became the 
legal terms respectively for the male and female lines of 
inheritance. Spinster was and is still the English term 
for unmarried women. January 7 was jocularly called 
St. Distaff's Day, or Rock Day, and signified the resumption 
of spinning after the rest of the Christmas holidays. 



EARLY IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY 

To Lewis Paul, John Wyatt, James Hargreaves, John 
Kay, Richard Arkwright, James Crompton, and Edmund 
Cartwright the textile industry owes the basic inven- 
tions which have revolutionized it. It is impossible to 
say to whom the greatest credit is due, for there is much 
controversy over the question of whose inventive work 
takes priority, — whether Paul and Wyatt are entitled to 
more credit than Kay, Hargreaves, or Arkwright. One 
thing is certain: for thousands of years before these great, 
ingenious Englishmen set their minds to work upon the 
problem of increasing the efficiency of the spinning wheel 
and loom there was little change in the method and manner 
of making fabrics. Both spinning and weaving were sub- 
stantially the same as those practised alike by the savage, 
by the ancient Chinese, by the Egyptians of Pharaoh's 
time, and by the spinners and weavers of mediseval or 
early modern times; and the output was limited by the 
amount of manual labor that could be brought to it and 
the capacity of the crude spinning wheel and equally crude 
loom upon which fabrics were fashioned. 

One of the earliest attempts to improve the loom was 
made in 1678 by a M. de Gennes, a Frenchman. The im- 
provement consisted of an appliance which, like mechani- 
cal hands, shot in and out of the warp, and exchanged the 
shuttle. Another invention was that of grinding the 



74 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

shuttle througli the warp by cog wheels working at each 
end upon teeth affixed to the upper side of the shuttle. 
It was known as Swivel's loom, and is described in 1724 
as working twenty-four laces at a time and as having been 
stolen from the Dutch, from which it took its other name 
of the Dutch loom. A factory in which these looms were 
installed in 1760 at Manchester, with water as the motive 
power, failed because of the impracticability of the in- 
vention. 

While the artisans of Continental Europe were at work 
upon improvements in spinning and weaving, the English- 
men about Manchester were by no means idle, and to Eng- 
land more than to any other nation are due the basic in- 
ventions which have revolutionized the whole textile in- 
dustry, changing it from a hand occupation of meagre 
output to one of power machinery with an enormous pro- 
duction. 

JOHN KAY 

One of the first inventions was that of the fly shuttle, 
patented May 26, 1733, by John Kay, an English machinist 
and engineer. Kay's father had a woolen manufactory 
at Colchester, and the son, who was born in 1704 near Bury, 
and had been educated abroad, was put, while still a youth, 
in charge of the mill. 

His mechanical bent soon showed itself in the various 
improvements he made in dressing, batting, and carding 
machinery, in the development of the Dutch boy and the 
inkle loom in the mill. By inserting dents of metal instead 
of cane he greatly improved the reeds of the loom, thus 
making them more durable and better adapted for the 
weaving of finer and stronger textures. 

The first patent, a new machine for making, twisting, and 
carding mohair and worsted and for twining and dressing 
thread, was taken out in 1730, when he was but twenty-six. 
The fly shuttle, so called because of the speed with which 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 75 

it could be operated, greatly improved the quality of the 
cloth, lightened the labor, and yet more than doubled the 
output. 

By the old method the shuttle was cast through the warp 
from side to side by one hand, caught by the other, and the 
easy weft thread was driven home by the layer which was 
operated by the hand that had just cast the shuttle. In 
making broadcloth with the old loom, which had been in 
use from time immemorial without improvement, a weaver 
stood on each side of the warp. 

Kay's improvements involved the invention of the race 
board, which he fixed to the layer under the warp by a shuttle 
box at each end, with a spindle and picker on each box. 
A cord passed from each picker to a short lever in the 
weaver's right hand. It compassed great improvements 
in the shuttle. 

One hand could thus be used to throw the shuttle while 
the other drove home the weft. The weaver sat in the 
middle of the loom, and pulled at pleasure the small cord 
which cast the shuttle from side to side. As spinning 
was still done on the hand wheel, the demands for the 
increased output of the loom soon outran the product 
of the thread. This more than anything else set the spin- 
ners to work upon improving the methods of spinning, and 
yet it was almost forty years before machine spinning was 
perfected. 

The Yorkshire clothiers were the first to adopt the fly 
shuttle. To avoid paying for its use, they formed an 
association called "The Shuttle Club," to cover each 
other's costs, should they be prosecuted. Although Kay's 
suits against these infringements were all decided in his 
favor, he was almost bankrupted by the expense to v/hich 
he was put. So much opposition did the weavers display 
to the introduction of the shuttle that Kay was forced to 
leave Colchester and take up his residence in Leeds. But 
in Leeds the same opposition was shown, and he finally 



76 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

consigned the spinning and carding machines he had in- 
vented to the poorhouse, where the inmates operated 
them. A mob broke into Kay's quarters, demolished 
everything they could find, and would have killed Kay, 
had not two friends smuggled him out, concealed in a sheet. 
His model of the spinning machine was saved by a Mr. 
Earnshaw, who subsequently destroyed it as "a very 
dangerous piece of furniture." 

Thoroughly discouraged with his experience in England, 
Kay went to France, and there resumed making the ma- 
chines which he had smuggled out of England. In 1764 
his son Robert wrote to the London Society of Arts and 
Manufactures, asking a premium for his father because 
of the father's invention of the fly shuttle. 

"I have a great many more inventions than what I 
have given," Kay himself wrote, "and the reason that 
I have not put them forward is the bad treatment which 
I had from woolen and cotton factories in different parts 
of England many years ago. And then I applied to Parlia- 
ment, and they would not assist me in my affairs, which 
obliged me to go abroad to get money to pay my debts 
and support my family." 

With the hope of securing a reward from the govern- 
ment, he later returned to England, but, failing in his efforts, 
he again took up his residence in France, where he died 
in obscurity and actual want. His inventions with modi- 
fications are, however, in use to this day. 

One of the improvements was made by his son Robert, 
who worked out the drop-box in 1760, by which many 
different kinds of weft could be worked into the same 
fabric, and figured goods thus be produced. 

In fact, a strain of inventive genius seems to have run 
through the Kay family, for Robert, too, was constantly 
working upon textile inventions; and some of his inven- 
tions, in modified form, are in use to-day. 




J O H tc K A'Y OF B 17 R Y 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 77 

PAUL AND WYATT 

Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, other early inventors about 
whom little is known, originated the principle of spinning 
by rollers, and took out their first patents June 24, 1738. 
The patent is thus described: "The wool or cotton being 
prepared, one end of the roving is put between a pair of 
rollers, which by their motion draw in the cotton to be 
spun, and a suction of other rollers moving proportionately 
faster than the first draws the roving into any degree of 
fineness which may be required." Although two cotton 
mills, one at Birmingham and the other on a larger scale 
at Northampton, were built in 1741, to operate under the 
patent, neither was successful. Lewis Paul took out a 
patent on a carding machine Aug. 30, 1748, and on June 
29, 1758, he patented his spinning machinery. 

JAMES HARGREAVES 

The first practical improvement in spinning was the 
invention of the spinning jenny by James Hargreaves, a 
poor and ignorant spinner and weaver, who is sometimes 
described as a carpenter, because he probably combined 
the latter trade with that of his textile work. Very little 
is known of his early life. He was a weaver, living at 
Sandhill, near Blackburn, England, in 1760, and had in- 
vented a carding machine. A contemporary describes him 
as a "broad-set man, about five feet ten." His ingenuity 
seems to have attracted the notice of the Peel family, for 
in 1760 he aided Robert Peel, of Blackburn, founder of the 
family, to make a carding machine based on one that had 
been worked out by Lewis Paul; but it was not a success. 

Hargreaves conceived of his invention by seeing a one- 
thread spinning wheel, which his small child had accidentally 
overturned, continue to revolve when the spindle was thrown 
into an upright position, and the thought came to him 



78 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

that if a number of spindles were placed upright, side by 
side, a number of threads might be spun at one time. He 
set to work upon the idea, and in three years, June 22, 
1770, patented his spinning wheel, which he named after 
his daughter (probably the child that had upset the original 
wheel), a spinning jenny, and so the invention has con- 
tinued to be known. The number of spindles was origi- 
nally eight, but rose to twenty or thirty, and eventually 
to as many as one hundred and twenty. 

Owing to the awkward position that the machine re- 
quired of the operator, children could more readily work 
it, and children, therefore, were thus early set to work at 
textile machines. As the spinning jenny did not make 
thread strong enough for the warp, and the roving still 
had to be spun in the old way, the use of the invention 
was restricted. 

RICHARD ARKWRIGHT 

It has long been a question of dispute to what extent 
Richard Arkwright used the ideas of Thomas High in the 
working out of the next step in spinning machinery, — 
the perfection of a practical roller spinner. In the suits 
that were brought by Arkwright to establish his patents, 
John Kay, the clock maker of Warrenton, who assisted 
Arkwright in the construction of his machinery, declared 
that he told Arkwright of the invention of roller spinning 
by Thomas High, and that Arkwright knew of High's 
work while he was at work upon his inventions. 

However this may be, to Richard Arkwright, more 
than perhaps to any other Englishman, the development 
of the textile industry about Manchester is due, and to 
his undoubted mechanical genius must be attributed the 
completion in practical shape of roller spinning and other 
processes of the textile industry. He found the industry 
largely decentralized. His financial and executive ability, 
as well as his mechanical bent, gave the textile industry 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 79 

in England such an impetus that the rest of the world has 
had quite a task to overtake it. 

To him also belongs the unusual distinction, not only 
of revolutionizing an industry, but of compassing the social 
rise from a barber's chair to knighthood. It was not 
until his perfection of the spinning frame that warp threads 
of cotton could be made strong enough to meet the neces- 
sary requirements. 

As described in after-life by the dyspeptic Carlyle, "He 
was a plain, almost gross, bag-cheeked, pot-bellied Lan- 
cashire man, with an air of painful reflection, yet also of 
copious, free digestion." 

Arkwright was one of thirteen children, born in Preston, 
Lancashire, Dec. 23, 1732, of parents so poor he was 
early forced to work, and thus had opportunity for no 
more education than could be scantily acquired at an even- 
ing school. Never could he read or write with ease, and, 
even when more than fifty, he stole four hours daily from 
the scanty allotment for sleep in order to learn grammar 
and spelling. 

He was apprenticed, when a boy, to a barber, and at 
the end of his apprenticeship established himself at Bolton. 
One of the strange tales told of this period of his life is to 
the effect that, while in Bolton, he occupied a cellar, over 
the entrance to which he put this sign: "Come to the 
Subterranean Barber. He shaves for a Penny." After 
the other barbers reduced their prices to meet the com- 
petition, Arkwright later announced, "A Clean Shave for 
a Half Penny." 

Coming into the possession of a secret chemical process 
for dyeing the hair, Arkwright travelled through the coun- 
try, buying hair, which he dyed and sold to wig makers 
at larger prices than others could obtain. His childhood 
at Preston, where there was a manufactory of linen from 
yarn spun with the distaff and spindle, had probably made 
him somewhat familiar with the textile industry, and 



80 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

this knowledge was increased by his work as a buyer of 
hair in a district where spinning and weaving were com- 
mon in most households. 

Although Arkwright was not a practical mechanic, he 
had mechanical ability, which enabled him to see possi- 
bilities in machines and to direct the handiwork of others. 
As early as 1767 Arkwright had become interested in tex- 
tile machinery, for he then employed Kay, the Warrenton 
clock maker, "to turn him some brass and bend him some 
wires." It was reported that he was trying to produce 
perpetual motion. Accounts differ as to what first set 
him to work on the spinning process. 

One story is that he got his idea of roller spinning from 
seeing a bar of red-hot iron elongated by being drawn 
between two pairs of rollers, the second pair moving faster 
than the first. Kay says that Arkwright requested him 
to make a model of the machine used by High. This may 
or may not be true, but one thing is certain: Arkwright 
made practical what other men had been unable to do; 
and, more than that, he was able to put the machinery to 
such practical use that it changed the face of Lancashire 
and the textile industry. 

Arkwright had no means of financing his manufacturing, 
so he returned to Preston, his birthplace, and succeeded 
in interesting a liquor dealer and painter named Samuel 
Smalley. Arkwright's machine was set up in the parlor 
of the house belonging to the Free Grammar School, and 
so convinced Mr. Smalley of its utility that Smalley offered 
Arkwright his time and means for the marketing of the 
machine. 

So straitened, however, did Arkwright's financial condi- 
tion become during his stay at Preston that, when the 
"Great Election" took place, his suit was so ragged that 
another was given him to vote in. He and Smalley 
not having the means necessary to perfect the invention, 
and fearing the destruction of machines in Preston by mobs 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 81 

of workmen similar to those that had already destroyed 
the spinning jennies about Blackburn, Arkwright removed 
his machine to Nottingham, and interested some bankers 
named Wright. The machines not being perfected as 
speedily as the bankers hoped, they withdrew, and Ark- 
wright sought aid from Samuel Weed, of Nottingham, a 
partner of Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, who already had 
patented the stocking frame. Weed, Strutt, and Arkwright 
formed a partnership, and on July 3, 1769, Arkwright took 
out the first patent. 

According to the specifications of his patent he says: 
"I had by great study and long application invented a 
new piece of machinery never before found out, practised, 
or used for the making of weft grown from cotton, flax, 
wool, etc. That part of the roller which the cotton runs 
through is covered with wood, the top roller with leather, 
and the bottom one, fluted, etc., by one pair of rollers 
moving quicker than the other, draws it finer for twisting 
which is performed by the spindles, four in number, each 
twisting one of the four threads delivered by the four pairs 
of rollers." The first cotton mill in the world, as we have 
seen, was erected by him at Nottingham and was operated 
by horses. 

Arkwright's success with the spinning frame spurred 
him on to further inventions, and the new mill, which 
we have also learned was built in 1771 at Cromford and run 
by the river Derwent, compassed the whole operation 
of cotton spinning under one roof, and in this mill began 
the employment of children in factories. 

As it was found diflicult to market the excellent yarn 
produced by the mill, a stock soon accumulated, and, to 
use up the accumulation, Arkwright began in 1773 the 
weaving of calicoes, erecting for that purpose at Derby the 
first fire-proof mill ever constructed, and fitting it up with 
the best hand looms attainable, the power loom not yet 
having been invented. Further patents covering the whole 



82 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

spinning process, comprising carding, drawing, and roving 
machines, were taken out Dec. 16, 1775, by Arkwright; 
and these, together with the water frame, as Arkwright's 
roller spinning invention was termed because of its being 
operated at Cromford by water, made it possible for the 
first time to make cotton yarn strong enough for warp, 
and thus did away the linen yarn generally used for the 
purpose. 

In the mean time the spinners in different parts of Lan- 
cashire watched with considerable anxiety the increased 
production of the labor-saving devices which they thought 
threatened their livelihood, and finally, in 1779, stoned a 
mill that Arkwright had built in Chorley, and smashed 
every carding and spinning machine for miles about, sparing 
only spinning jennies of twenty spindles or less, because 
they could be worked by hand. 

Infringements of his patents sprang up on all sides, but 
could not affect his prosperity, for his capital and mills 
enabled him to overcome all obstacles. He sued nine of 
his competitors for infringements in 1781, and at the trial 
of these suits the principal defendant produced as witnesses 
Thomas High and Kay to combat Arkwright's claims 
to his patent rights, and the suits resulted in 1785 in the 
annulment of the patents. 

This lowered the bars to the industry, and the enormous 
profits brought unprecedented influx of capital to the 
whole trade. It had little effect, however, upon the pros- 
perity of Arkwright, because the number of his mills and 
the amount of his capital now enabled him to meet all 
the competition. He had the greatest confidence in his 
own machinery and ability, and made light even of ques- 
tions of taxation, remarking that his machines would enable 
him to pay the national debt. 

His improvements in the textile industry attracted the 
favorable comment of the king, and in 1786, on the oc- 
casion of his presenting an address as the sheriff of his 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 83 

county, congratulating the king on his escape from the 
knife of Margaret Nicholson, he was knighted. His in- 
dustry was prodigious. Often he worked from five in the 
morning till nine at night, and, to prevent the wasting of 
time, he generally travelled at rapid speed with four horses 
to his coach. He died at Cromford, Aug. 3, 1792, leav- 
ing a fortune of almost two million dollars and an incom- 
pleted castle at Willersby, England. 



SAMUEL CROMPTON 

The early inventors had made practical the spinning at 
one time of a number of threads sufficiently strong, how- 
ever, only for the weft. Arkwright worked out the water 
frame so that a coarse warp thread could be spun. It re- 
mained for Samuel Crompton to further perfect the spin- 
ning process by combining the Hargreaves spinning jenny 
and Arkwright's water frame in the machine called at 
first "the muslin wheel," then the " Hall-in-the-Wood 
wheel," and finally "the mule," because it was a "cross" 
between the spinning jenny and Arkwright's spinning frame. 
Until the invention of this machine, muslins were im- 
ported from India because Europe could not make yarn 
fine enough; but the muslin wheel, or mule, for the first 
time made it possible to spin yarn equal in fineness to 
the production of Hindu spinners. 

Crompton, who was born Dec. 3, 1753, at Firwood, 
near Bolton, came of a family which, like others of Lan- 
cashire, farmed, carded, spun, and wove. The eccen- 
tricities of the family cropped out to a lesser degree in the 
characteristics of Crompton. 

The family soon after his birth took up their residence 
in the portion of an ancient mansion in the woods near 
Bolton, called *' Hall-in-the-Wood," and soon after the 
father died, leaving the son to be brought up by the widow 
and her peculiar brother-in-law, Alexander Crompton. 



84 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Crompton's mother was wont to beat him, not for any par- 
ticular fault, as she told him, "but because she loved him 
so.'* When a young child, she set him to work trampling 
the dirt out of the washed cotton, and when he was six- 
teen, after receiving an ordinary education at Bolton Day 
School, she set him to spinning at home. In fact, he had 
begun to assist his mother at her loom as soon as his feet 
could work the treadle. She was noted for her excellent 
honey and elderberry wine, but she was hard and exacting, 
demanding a certain amount of work each day from Sammy. 
His uncle was so lame that he could not leave the room 
in which he slept at Hall-in-the-Wood. He, too, wove 
fustian on all days but Sunday. At the sound of the church 
bells he would put on his best coat and slowly read the 
service, concluding about the time church was dismissed. 
And he went through a similar ceremony at the time of 
the evening service. 

Crompton was reserved, industrious, and studious, very 
fond of music, and he made a violin upon which he be- 
came so proficient that he was able to play in the orchestra 
of the Bolton Theatre. 

The yarn being soft and constantly breaking on the 
Hargreaves jenny upon which he spun, his mother scolded 
him because he thus lost time in joining threads. His 
thoughts, therefore, early turned toward an improvement 
of the machine. It may have been that he desired more 
time for his violin or for his pleasures. As he attended 
night school and was studying mathematics, his work 
kept him from his books and also the violin, so that he was 
more and more driven to invent some improvement that 
would lessen the time of his work. 

From 1774 to 1779, or from the ages of twenty-one to 
twenty-six, he was engaged upon the mule, his only leisure 
being after his day's work or during hours taken from 
sleep. 

"My mind was in a continual endeavor to realize a more 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 85 

perfect principle of spinning," said he, "and, though often 
baffled, I as often renewed the attempt, and at last suc- 
ceeded to my utmost desire at the expense of every shiUing 
I had in the world." 

All his spare cash and more had gone for tools and 
materials, and, when the Bolton Theatre opened, he was 
glad to earn eighteen pence a night, playing the violin in 
the orchestra. He worked secretly, not even his mother 
and uncle knowing what he was doing until the noise of 
his night work aroused their curiosity. The lights and 
strange noises at unusual hours, heard by the neighbors, 
soon made them think that the hall was haunted, and their 
curiosity finally became so great that they would climb up 
to his attic windows to watch his work. 

His first mule was made of wood and iron secured from 
a near-by smithy, and the point of his invention was that 
his spindle carriage was so adjusted that the thread had 
no strain upon it until it was completed. As it was de- 
scribed, "The carriage with the spindle could by a move- 
ment of the hand and knee recede just as the rollers de- 
livered out the elongated thread in a soft state, so that it 
would allow of a considerable stretch before the thread 
had to encounter the strain of winding on the spindle." 

"How did Crompton make that yarn?" was the uni- 
versal question of the buyers of yarn in the market-place, 
who were surprised by the fineness of his thread. 

It became possible at once to make East India muslins 
at home, and Crompton's prosperity began. He married, 
and hired a cottage near the Hall, continuing to weave 
and to retain his work-room in the Hall. Orders for his 
yarn at his own price poured in on him, and great was the 
desire to know how he spun. All kinds of plans were used 
to ascertain it. Some climbed to the windows of the work- 
room, and peeped in, so that he was obliged to set up a 
screen to hide his machine, and one of the manufacturing 
neighbors even climbed into the loft over Crompton's 



86 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

workshop, and watched him for several days through a 
gimlet hole he had cut in the ceiling. 

When Blackburn spinners commenced smashing Har- 
greaves's jennies, Crompton took his machine apart, and 
hid it in a loft near a clock in the Hall. He realized, as 
he had no money for a patent, that he must either destroy 
his machine or make it public. He therefore set about 
raising a subscription as a reward for making known to 
the manufacturers his improvements in spinning, and 
secured fifty-five subscriptions of one guinea each and 
sixty-seven of six shillings and sixpence, less than the cost 
of one mule. He realized scarcely anything from this, 
however, as most of the subscribers failed to meet their 
subscriptions. 

Removing to Oldham, he continued to farm and spin 
to such perfection that his yarn was the best and finest 
in the market. It was thought that he must have made 
some improvements in his machine, and, to discover what 
these were, efforts were made to bribe his servants. Sir 
Robert Peel offered him a large salary and prospective 
partnership, which he refused. Gentlemen of Manchester 
raised about five hundred pounds for him, which he promptly 
sank in the development of his business. 

About 1780 he invented a carding machine which was 
not practical. In 1800 he rented the top story of a Bolton 
factory, and installed two mules and the necessary pre- 
paratory machines, but he could not keep his workmen, 
as others hired them as soon as he had trained them. 

A grant of ten thousand pounds sterling by Parliament 
to Cartwright, who invented the power loom, led Crompton 
in 1809 to make a similar appeal. He visited all the manu- 
facturing districts, receiving much attention at Glasgow. 
The manufacturers wanted to give him a dinner, but his 
shyness shattered the plans. 

*' Rather than face up," said he, "I first hid myself and 
then bolted from the city." 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 87 

His case, however, was not laid before Parliament until 
later; but, as Parliament was slow to act, lie wrote to Mr. 
Giddy, who was pushing his claim, that there would be no 
difficulty in getting rid of him. "The only anxiety I now 
feel is that Parliament may not dishonor themselves. Me 
they cannot dishonor. All the risk is with them. I con- 
sider it to be the greatest honor I can confer upon them 
to offer them an opportunity of doing me and themselves 
justice." 

He said, further, his friends and family would be ashamed, 
had he come begging or demanding, as he "only wanted 
a fair hearing and dealing according to merit." 

Spencer Perceval, the prime minister, took up the matter, 
and was ready to suggest that Crompton be granted twenty 
thousand pounds, but, before he could recommend it, he was 
assassinated in the House of Commons, 1809, by John Bel- 
lingham, and Crompton was allowed only five thousand 
pounds. He invested this in a small bleaching establish- 
ment, where he spent much time in devising new patterns 
for fancy muslins, which his neighbors stole, and undersold 
him by manufacturing cheaper fabrics. 

So prosperous became the weaving fraternity through 
the invention of the mule that it was the practice of Man- 
chester weavers to walk the streets with five-pound notes 
stuck in their hat -bands, smoking long church - warden 
pipes; and they would allow no other handicraft men in 
the rooms which they happened to be occupying in the 
public house. By 1812 4,600,000 spindles were at work 
on mules using 40,000,000 pounds of cotton annually, and 
employing 500,000 operatives. 

Crompton was a man of much sensitiveness. He believed 
in spiritualism and witchcraft, and was an excellent mu- 
sician. He had physical strength and much personal 
beauty. One of his feats was to take a sack of fiour by the 
end and toss it on to a cart. He is described as wearing 
corduroy breeches, woolen stockings, dark gray or black 



88 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

coat, colored neck-cloth, and always a clean shirt and clean 
shoes. If any one on the Manchester Exchange ventured 
to offer him lower than he asked for his yarn, he would 
wrap up his samples and refuse to show them again. Once, 
when a foreign count called at Bolton to see him, he sent 
back word that he could not be seen, as he had gone to bed. 
The friend replied that the count would then visit him in 
his bedroom, to which Crompton answered that, if he did, 
he would hide under the bed. 

He was not a success as a business man. In 1824 some 
friends helped him out with an annuity of sixty-three 
pounds, while in 1826 another attempt was made to secure 
aid from Parliament. He finally died, June 26, 1827, at 
Bolton. 

EDMUND CARTWRIGHT 

These improvements of the spinning machines so in- 
creased the output of yarn that there was almost a glut 
of the market, and more and more imperative grew the 
demands for a loom that would handle the production on 
a greater scale, as the old hand loom proved so totally 
inadequate. 

The problem of the power loom, therefore, received 
consideration in many quarters. The one who succeeded 
in working out a practical plan for power weaving, and 
who did for the old hand loom what Paul, Wyatt, High, 
Arkwright, and Crompton had done for the spinning ma- 
chine, was Edmund Cartwright, a minister of the Church 
of England. 

He knew little about mechanics when a chance conversa- 
tion in a public house directed his attention to the prob- 
lem of power weaving. As Cartwright himself described 
it, "Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, 
I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, 
when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning 
machinery. One of the company observed that, as soon as 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 89 

Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, 
and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found 
to weave it. To this observation I replied that Arkwright 
must then set his wits to work and invent a weaving mill. 
This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which 
the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the 
thing was impracticable; and in defence of their opinion 
they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent 
to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant 
of the subject, having never at any time seen a person 
weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of 
the thing by remarking that there had lately been ex- 
hibited in London an automaton figure which played at 
chess. 

"Some time afterwards a particular circumstance re- 
calling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, 
as in plain weaving according to the conception I then 
had of the business, there could be only three movements 
which were to follow each other in succession, there would 
be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full 
of these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and 
smithy to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine 
was finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was 
of such material as sail cloth is usually made of. To my 
great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the pro- 
duction. 

"As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything 
mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had even 
seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its construction, 
you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been 
a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed 
perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half 
a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle 
were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. 
In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to 
work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. 



90 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Conceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished 
all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most 
valuable property by a patent, April 4, 1785. This being 
done, I then condescended to see how other people wove; 
and you will guess my astonishment when I compared their 
easy mode of operation with mine. Availing myself, 
however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its 
general principles, nearly as they are now made; but it 
was not till the year 1787 that I completed my inven- 
tion, when I took my last weaving patent, August 1st of 
that year." 

Cartwright had thus accomplished what had seemed 
to be impossible, — ^he had made a loom which could be 
automatically stopped upon the breaking of a thread, and 
which made practical the production of fabrics by power 
machinery. 

That Cartwright, a complete stranger to the textile 
industry, should have been able to accomplish what me- 
chanical geniuses in the industry itself had worked in 
vain to attain is but another illustration of the truth 
which crops out so repeatedly in the history of invention, 
and even in the merchandising of goods, — that some of 
the most remarkable inventions have sprung from, been 
evolved and worked out by, men who, when they first 
conceived of an improvement in the required machine, 
were strangers to the occupation which the invention bene- 
fited. It is also true of business that some of the most 
successful plans of merchandising or of marketing goods 
have come from a man who was not engaged in the business 
that the idea helped. 

Edmund Cartwright was born at Nottingham, April 
24, 1743, and was the fourth son of William Cartwright, 
who came of an established family. Cartwright was edu- 
cated at the Wakefield Grammar School, and was par- 
ticularly proficient in mathematics. He entered Oxford 
at fourteen years of age. Here literature attracted his 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 91 

attention, and he wrote verses and book reviews for the 
Monthly Review. He married, settled in the rectory of 
Goodby, Marwood, Leicestershire, and later obtained 
a prebend in the cathedral of Lincoln. He devoted him- 
self to his calling and literature. He had already pub- 
lished "The Armine and Elvira," a legendary poem, and 
also "The Prince of Peace." 

As described by his friend Crabbe, the poet, "Few persons 
could tell a good story so well, no man make more of a 
trite one. I can just remember him, the portly, dignified, 
old gentleman of the last generation, grave and polite, but 
full of humor and spirit." 

The manufacturers to whom he showed his loom gave 
him little encouragement, and finally, in order to bring out 
his invention, he set up a factory of his own at Doncaster, 
a bull at first supplying the power, which was replaced by 
a steam-engine in 1789. In the same year he took out a 
patent for a wool-combing machine. In 1792 he invented 
a machine for making rope. The enterprise at Doncaster 
failed of success because of Cartwright's ignorance of 
business details and the malicious jealousy of other manu- 
facturers, who were now beginning to realize the value of 
his inventions. 

He had already in 1786 commenced improvements on 
the steam-engine, patents for which he took out in 1797, 
alcohol being used for fuel. He had pronounced scruples 
about using other men's ideas, and therefore did not 
look at other inventions of engines, lest he unconsciously 
borrow an idea. For this reason his work was quite orig- 
inal. It is said that he assisted Fulton in his steamboat 
experiments. The main bent of his inventive mind was 
constantly at work upon textile problems, and his idea 
bore further fruit in the invention, in 1789, of a machine 
which was even more original than the power loom. 

The prejudice shown by the spinners and weavers against 
inventions turned toward Cartwright in 1790, when a mill 



92 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

which had been erected by Messrs. Grimshaw, of Man- 
chester, and which contained four hundred of Cartwright' 
looms and was operated by steam, was set on fire and 
burned to the ground by the working-people. This was 
such a blow to Cartwright's purse and spirits, as other 
manufacturers failed to install his machines, that soon 
after he gave up his Doncaster mill, and became a member 
of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manu- 
factures. 

As has been the experience of. other manufacturers, he, 
too, was obliged to wage suits in protection of his patents, 
and finally, discouraged, turned his attention to the in- 
vention of agricultural implements, inventing in 1803, 
while in charge of the Duke of Bedford's experimental 
farm, a three-furrow plough and other improvements. At 
last he attracted the attention of the government, which 
in 1809 granted him a reward of ten thousand pounds with 
which he bought a farm at HoUonden, Kent. Here he 
lived until his death, Oct. 30, 1823, making implements 
and improvements in agricultural methods. 

INVENTIONS OP KNITTING MACHINES 

It is supposed that knitting was known to the ancients, 
although there is no direct evidence, the first historic men- 
tion being about the time of Henry IV. of England. In 
ancient times the leg was generally left uncovered, and, when 
stockings were first worn, they were cut with scissors from 
cloth of linen, woolen, or silk, and sewed together. Knit- 
ting probably began at an early date in the history of 
England, for woven woolen caps were worn by the 
peasants of England and Scotland as far back as the 
Norman conquest; and knitted caps came into general 
use among the poorer classes in England some time prior 
to 1488. 

The price was then fixed by an act of Henry VII. at 




CARTWRIGHT'S LOOM 

(According to the Patent Specifications, April 4, 1785) 

A, the warp beam; B, the cloth beam; C, the boxes containing the 
springs that throw the shuttles; D, a lever having a corresponding one on 
the opposite side for elevating the reed, or comb; E, a lever having a 
corresponding one on the opposite side for reversing the threads; F, the 
cylinder which gives motion to the levers. 

N.B. — The warp is kept to a due degree of tension by the counteraction 
of either a weight or spring. The web is made to wind by the like power, 
though in an inferior degree, and is prevented as the strike of the reed, or 
comb, brings it down from unwinding by a ratch and click. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 93 

two shillings, eightpence. By 1530 the word "knit" was 
a common term in England, and there are many references 
to the knitting of bonnets and hose, and the practice of 
knitting soon became a domestic employment. 

The first attempt to knit stockings by machinery is 
supposed to have been made by the Rev. William Lee, of 
St. John's College, Cambridge, who was born at Wood- 
borough, near Nottingham, and completed his invention 
before the beginning of the seventeenth century. As one 
story goes, Lee was deeply in love with a young towns- 
woman of his, but, whenever he courted her, she seemed 
more interested in her knitting than in the attention of 
her suitor. This piqued Mr. Lee, and he determined to 
make a machine that would turn out work enough so that 
hand knitting would be a profitless employment, accomplish- 
ing his design about 1589. He taught his relatives to work 
under him, and for some time carried on his work at Cal- 
verton, England. Oliver Cromwell investigated the ma- 
chine-wrought hosiery trade, and granted it a charter June 
13, 1657. 

It is said that Lee's invention was brought to the at- 
tention of Queen Elizabeth, who, while she expressed her 
admiration for the ingenuity of the inventor, was much 
disappointed because, instead of the fine silk hose she had 
expected, the output was coarse worsted stockings which 
had only eight needles, or wales, to the inch width. A 
patent was sought for Lee from Queen Elizabeth by her 
kinsman. Lord Hunsdon, but, in refusing the request, she 
said: — 

"My lord, I have too much love for my poor people who 
obtain their bread by the employment of knitting to give 
my money to forward an invention that will tend to lead 
to their ruin, by depriving them of employment and thus 
make them beggars. Had Mr. Lee made a machine that 
would have made silk stockings, I should, I think, have 
been somewhat justified in granting him a patent for that 



94 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

monopoly, which would have affected only a small number 
of my subjects, but to enjoy the exclusive privilege of mak- 
ing stockings for the whole of my subjects is too important 
to be granted to any individual." 

And no patent was ever granted Lee. Spurred by the 
queen's remarks, however, Lee set about constructing 
a machine for making silk stockings, and, aided by his 
brother James, succeeded in 1598 in making a machine on 
which he was able to produce a pair of stockings which he 
presented to Queen Elizabeth, who was greatly pleased 
with their beauty and elasticity. They brought him, 
however, no money or patent. Discouraged and disap- 
pointed, he accepted an invitation from Henry IV. of France 
to establish himself in that country, and was presented 
by Sully to the French king. The assassination of King 
Henry, however, by Ravaillac, while Lee was waiting at 
Paris for a grant of privilege to manufacture at Rouen, 
ended Lee's prospects, and he returned to Paris, where he 
died in want in 1610. 

His machines were brought back to England by his 
brother, who established the industry there. And early 
in the seventeenth century the trade association of the 
London Frame Work Knitters was formed to regulate 
conditions of work and prices. Knowledge of the crude 
stocking frame little by little leaked out of England, though 
for a long time England had almost an exclusive manufact- 
ure of machine-made hose. No marked improvement, 
however, was made until Jedediah Strutt, Arkwright's 
partner, became interested in the process. 

Strutt was a farmer at Blackwell, and had married the 
sister of William Woollett, a hosier. His brother-in-law 
having called his attention to the stocking frame and the 
need of improvement so that ribbed hose could be made, 
Strutt, after much study, succeeded in compassing his 
ribbed stocking frame, and in 1758 took out his patents. 
He removed to Derby, and with his brother-in-law estab- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 95 

lished his well-known mills for making hosiery. When 
he died in 1797 at Derby, his mills were the greatest in 
England. 

IPSWICH MILLS 

The largest manufacturers of knit goods in America to-day 
are the Ipswich Mills of Ipswich and South Boston, Mass., 
and Belmont, N.H. This industry at Ipswich began in 
1818, when a number of knitters from Nottingham, Eng- 
land, immigrated to Ipswich and established the industry 
which they had mastered at Nottingham. The same year 
the first stocking machine was imported, secreted in the 
hold of the ship, and packed in a cargo of salt, as there 
was a fine of five hundred pounds sterling for exporting 
stocking machinery from England. It was not brought to 
Ipswich until 1822, when it knit the first pair of stockings 
in the kitchen of a private dwelling. Other machines were 
secretly imported, and in 1824 Augustine Heard, a resident 
of Ipswich, established the industry. 

The building used by Mr. Heard's company was shortly 
before 1868 bought by Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, and trans- 
ferred to the Ipswich Mills. 

The industry was a new one, the machinery crude, and the 
labor unskilled. And, as America did not realize that 
hosiery could be made in this country, women refused to 
buy anything with the American mark, so that the industry 
first travelled a far from easy road. 

Mr. Lawrence in January, 1868, wrote: "I am starting 
up my mill at Ipswich again, which has been stopped for 
a few weeks. This attempt to manufacture cotton stock- 
ings by machinery, so that they can be sold at $1.50 per 
dozen, has caused me to lose not less than $100 a day for 
eight hundred days, — $80,000, — yet I am not discouraged, 
though I feel the loss very much." 

The persistency with which the pioneer mill was handled, 
the ingenious invention of machinery, and competition have 



96 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

made it possible to place on the market stockings of better 
and better value at continually lower prices. The result 
has been that this part of our wardrobe is constantly grow- 
'ing less expensive. 



JOSEPH MARIE CHARLES JACQUARD 

The last of the great inventions which have accomplished 
such wonders for the textile industry was that of the Jac- 
quard loom. It made it possible to weave into fabrics of 
all kinds the most intricate and beautiful designs. 

Its inventor, Joseph Marie Charles Jacquard, was born 
July 7, 1752, at Lyons. His father was a working weaver, 
while his mother is said to have been a pattern maker. 

Thinking that Jacquard could better develop his physical 
powers in the pursuit of a trade, his father gave him little 
or no education. When he was about twenty, his father 
died, leaving him a small house and hand loom, and he turned 
his genius to improvements in weaving. He was unsuc- 
cessful, however, and sought other occupations, working 
first in a plaster quarry at Bresse, near Lyons, afterwards 
at cutlery, type founding, and weaving in Lyons. He 
served during the Revolution of 1792, his son being killed 
while defending Lyons against the army of the Convention. 

Soon after he attracted the attention of the Council of 
Lyons, which gave him access to an experimental loom for 
the development of weaving improvements in the Palace 
of Fine Arts, with a stipulation that he should teach scholars 
without charge. He was thus engaged when the Society 
of Arts in London offered a reward for a machine for 
making fishing nets. On the 2d of February, 1804, 
Jacquard received three thousand francs and a gold 
medal from the London Society for a machine which he 
had perfected and exhibited to the Conservatorium of Arts 
and Trades. 

This brought him to the attention of Napoleon Bona- 




C\/n\ (' r 61 //'^ 1 < ^^^ J ^ ^^-^ 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 97 

parte, who sent for him. He was received by Napoleon and 
his great minister, Carnot. 

"Are you the man who can do what God Almighty can- 
not, — tie a knot in a taut string?" he was asked by the 
Emperor. 

"I can do not what God cannot, but what God has taught 
me to do," was the reply. 

He was given a position in the Conservatorium of Arts, 
where he had not only an opportunity to improve his own 
weaving machine, but had also the chance to study the work 
on textile machines of Bouchon, Falcon, and Vaucanson. 

Vaucanson's machines and automatons, one of which 
was said to have been a duck that would waddle, quack, 
swim, eat, and digest food by mechanical process, surely 
furnished ideas to Jacquard. Afterwards in 1804 he re- 
turned to Lyons where he finished his loom. It combined 
the best parts of those of his predecessors, together with 
those of his own improvements, and was the first machine 
to do practical design weaving. 

The Jacquard loom had ingeniously arranged weighted 
strings which passed over a pulley and fell into perforated 
cards. Each motion changed the position of these strings, 
and allowed some of them to go through the holes and thus 
draw up the warp thread so that it was skipped by the warp; 
while others would strike the card, and leave their strands 
in place to be regularly woven. In this way the weaver 
could pass his threads over, under, or through the warp, 
as the design required. 

Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806 granted him an annuity of 
three thousand francs with the understanding that he should 
transfer his invention to the city of Lyons, as well as any 
further improvements he might make. 

His experience was like that of all other great inventors, — 
so violent was the opposition of the weavers to the intro- 
duction of his loom that the Conseil des Prudhommes broke 
up his machine in the public places, and Jacquard was com- 



98 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

pelled to flee to save his life. Little by little, however, the 
looms were adopted, and proved to be of the greatest value, 
establishing Lyons as the art centre of the textile industry. 

Jacquard died Aug. 7, 1834, at Oullins, France, having 
attained the ripe old age of eighty-two, and having lived 
long enough to see over thirty thousand Jacquard looms 
in operation in the city of Lyons. 



MACHINES FOR SPINNING FLAX 

The inventions of Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, and 
Crompton, were principally applicable to cotton and wool, 
and made little improvement in the hand methods of spin- 
ning flax, because the raw flax was too brittle to stand the 
strain of the tension that the spinning machine could with 
safety put upon cotton. The impetus given, therefore, to 
cotton manufacture proved most disastrous to the linen 
industry. The demand for linen fabrics fell off, and the 
trade which had been the life-blood of villages and whole 
provinces disappeared, and to a much lesser degree took 
refuge in the more remote rural localities where it was able 
to resist the encroachments of the power loom. In these 
localities, such as in parts of Ireland, linen still continues 
to be spun and woven by hand, and the skill shown by 
hand spinners and hand weavers is not excelled by the 
most intricate machinery of to-day. 

In 1725 machinery of a crude nature had been applied 
in Ireland to the spinning industry without success. Eng- 
lish inventors had before this, however, set to work upon 
the problem of spinning flax, and the first practical machines 
were the inventions of John Kendrew and Thomas Port- 
house, of Darlington, England, who in 1787 took oiit patents 
upon a mule, or machine, constructed upon a new principle, 
for spinning hemp, tow, flax, and wool. These machines, 
with many improvements and modifications, have led to 
the perfect system for spinning flax now in use. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 99 

JAMES WATT. 

The progress made in textile machinery in England would 
have been handicapped by a lack of motive power to drive 
the machines, had it not been for the improvements made 
in the steam-engine by James Watt, the Scottish engi- 
neer. The amount of water power was limited, and the 
supply during the course of the year, owing to rainfall, 
was irregular and often inadequate. Watt's improve- 
ments in the steam-engine came at a time when England 
needed steam to drive the wheels of the great industry, the 
output of which her inventors had so greatly increased. 

The steam-engine when Watt's attention was attracted to 
it in 1764, by being called upon to repair a model of the crude 
engine of Thomas Newcomen that was a part of the scien- 
tific apparatus at Glasgow College where Watt was mathe- 
matical instrument maker, was used solely to pump water 
from the mines at Cornwall. Watt perceived its enormous 
waste consumption of steam, and began an investigation to 
learn the cause and the remedy. This he was enabled to 
do quite as much by his training as by his inventive genius. 

He was born at Greenock, Jan. 19, 1736. By the failure 
of his father, who was a small merchant, he was thrown 
upon his own resources, and went to London at the age of 
nineteen. He apprenticed himself to John Morgan, a phil- 
osophical instrument maker, but, his health breaking, he 
returned home, and through acquaintances in the Glasgow 
College he secured his position in the college. 

He found that Newcomen' s engine consumed enormous 
quantities of steam and coal because of the alternate heat- 
ing and cooling of the cylinder, owing to the use of water 
in chilling it and its faulty construction. Watt cased the 
cylinder in a non-conducting material and introduced a 
steam jacket, or layer of steam, between the cylinder proper 
and an outer shell. 

He took out his first patent in 1769. As he had needed 



100 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

money to carry on his experiments, he had formed a part- 
nership with Dr. John Roebuck, who had iron works at 
Carron. Roebuck became involved in financial difficulties, 
and for a number of years Watt was occupied with civil 
engineering whicih entailed canal digging and harbor dredg- 
ing. In 1768 he met Mathew Boulton, head of the Soho 
engineering work at Birmingham. The two formed a 
partnership, and in 1775 applied for a renewal of Watt's 
patents which he received for twenty-five years. 

Watt from this time on devoted himself to perfecting and 
developing the steam-engine. He took out a number of 
patents, and soon the perfected engine had driven New- 
comen's from the Cornish mines. His last patent was 
taken out in 1784, when he had completed the steam-engine 
so that it was applicable to power-driving of all sorts. It 
was practically the engine as it has been in use to within a 
few years. He found it a steam-pump, slow working, 
cumbrous, and excessively wasteful of fuel. His patent 
made it economical in working, powerful, and efficient, 
but it was still only a steam-pump. His later inventions 
adapted it to driving machinery of all kinds, and made it 
particularly applicable to use in textile mills. He retired 
from business in 1800, and his business was carried on for 
years by his two sons and a son of Boulton. He died on 
the 19th of August, 1819. 

By 1811 the process of making cloth had reached such 
perfection in England that, according to "The Book of 
Days," Sir John Throckmorton, of Berkshire, could wager 
a thousand guineas that he would at eight o'clock on a partic- 
ular evening sit down to dinner in a well-woven, well-dyed, 
well-made suit the wool of which formed the fleece on 
a sheep's back at five o'clock on the same morning. Mr. 
Coxetter, of Greenham Mills at Newbury, was put in 
charge of the work. 

He had at 5 a.m. on the 28th of June two South Devon 
sheep shorn. "The wool was washed, carded, stubbed. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 101 

roved, spun and woven; the cloth was scoured, fulled, 
tented, raised, sheared, dyed and dressed. The tailor was 
at hand and made up the finished cloth into garments, and 
at a quarter past six in the evening Sir John Throckmorton 
sat down to dinner at the head of his guests in a complete 
damson-colored suit that had thus been made, — winning 
the wager with an hour and three-quarters to spare." 



ELI WHITNEY 

The improvements in spinning and weaving machinery 
soon brought cotton manufacturing to a pass where its 
demand for raw material outran the supply, and ways and 
means for increasing the raw cotton available became a 
pressing necessity. 

As the industry about Manchester had grown, new fields 
for the production of cotton were developed. The original 
source of supply was India, other parts of the East, and 
Egypt. It was indigenous, however, to the West Indies, 
and soon these islands became a source of supply. About 
1770 West India cotton was transplanted to Georgia and 
later to North and South Carolina and other parts of the 
South, and it readily took growth and large crops were 
raised, which materially augmented Manchester's supply. 

Although the production of cotton was thus increased, 
the separation of the cotton from the seed and boll was slow 
and tedious, owing to the work being done by the hand 
labor of the large slave population of the South. It was 
largely the work of colored women, who separated the seed 
and cleaned the cotton from the boll with their finger-nails, 
and it took a negro a day to pick a pound of cotton from 
the boll and separate it from the entangled seed. All that 
could be produced in the year 1792 was 138,324 pounds. 

The invention of the cotton gin, perfected in April, 
1793, by Eli Whitney, a graduate of Yale, revolutionized 
the industry, and enabled a negro to clean five thousand 



102 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

pounds of cotton a day, thereby greatly increasing the sup- 
ply of American cotton. Indeed, within a few years of 
the invention of the gin the production had grown from 
the one hundred thousand and odd pounds to many millions 
of pounds of cotton a year, and had stimulated the cotton 
industry so greatly that the production of cotton goods 
led all others. 

Whitney's early environment and training gave his mind 
the mechanical bent which facilitated his inventive genius. 
At his father's farm at Westboro, Mass., where he was 
born Dec. 8, 1765, being one of a family of thirteen 
children, there was a machine shop in which the elder 
Whitney made wheels of various kinds and used lathes 
for turning tools and chair posts. In this shop Eli, when 
a boy not yet in his teens, was wont to make things, and 
soon became quite skilful in the handling of machinery. 

"What has Eli been doing .f^" asked his father one day, 
upon a return from a trip, of the woman who kept house 
for his motherless children, as his wife was dead. 

"He has been making a fiddle," was the answer. 

*' Ah! I fear Eli will have to take his portion with fiddles," 
replied the father, but the fiddle was very well made. And 
such a knowledge had Eli obtained through its construc- 
tion that the whole countryside was soon coming to him 
to mend fiddles. At another time when Whitney, the elder, 
was at church, the younger took his father's watch apart 
and successfully put it together again. 

When he was only thirteen, he made the first machine 
for manufacturing nails, the supply of which was cut off 
during the Revolution by the English blockade, and for 
three years previous to 1781 he was engaged in supplying 
the large demand that sprang up. 

His father desired him to go to college, but it was not 
until he was eighteen that he made up his mind to do it. 
Although skilled as a mechanic, he lacked the knowledge 
and the means necessary to go. Accordingly, he set about 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 103 

preparing himself by working for seven dollars a month and 
board in the towns about Worcester, Mass., by studying 
at spare moments, and attending, when he could, the neigh- 
boring academy. He added also to his income by selling 
bonnet pins and walking-sticks. 

At Yale, which he entered when twenty-three years old, 
he made mathematics his favorite study. When the as- 
tronomical apparatus broke down during some experiments, 
so expert had he become that he was able to repair it. Upon 
his graduation he decided to study law, and, to secure the 
means, obtained a position as tutor to the son of a South 
Carolina gentleman at eighty guineas a year. Small-pox 
delayed his sailing, and he fell in with the party of the 
widow of General Nathanael Greene, who was also waiting 
to sail. The father of his prospective pupil, becoming dis- 
couraged by the delay, engaged another tutor, and through 
the aid of Phineas Miller, another Yale graduate, Whitney 
obtained a position as tutor in Mrs. Greene's family at 
Mulberry Grove, near Savannah. 

One day some gentlemen were discussing, under the live- 
oaks and magnolias at Mulberry Grove, the slow manner 
of extracting the cotton seed from the cotton boll. 

"Why don't you go to work and get something which 
will do it?" it is said Mrs. Greene exclaimed. 

"Your good husband, though he cleaned the red-coats 
out of Georgia, could not clean the seeds from the cotton," 
was the retort. 

"Apply to my young friend here," answered Mrs. Greene, 
referring to Whitney. "He can make anything. He has 
repaired my children's toys. My tambour frame was all 
out of kilter, and I could not embroider with it at all, 
because it pulled and tore the threads so badly. Mr. 
Whitney noticed this, took it out on the porch, tinkered 
with it a little, and — there, see what he has done with it, — 
made its frame as good as new." 

"As for cleaning cotton seed," Mr. Whitney is reported 



104 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

to have said, "why, gentlemen, I shouldn't know the seed 
if I saw it. I don't think I ever saw cotton or cotton seed 
in my life." 

The next day he made it a point to see some cotton, 
and then set to work on a machine to pick it, Mrs. Greene 
giving him a room in which he could secretly carry on his 
experiments. 

He had observed old negro mammies clawing the seed 
off with their nails, and with this idea in his mind he set 
to work on a cylinder covered with the teeth of a wire 
comb. He placed the rollers with the teeth so near the 
cotton, which projected from an upper hopper of iron 
mesh, that the teeth would claw away the loose fibres from 
the cotton bolls. Caught by the saw-like teeth, the fibre 
dropped the seeds through the openings of the gratings 
of the hopper which held the cotton. The brushes of the 
second roller travelled in an opposite direction, so as to 
remove the cotton from the first cylinder. 

The invention was completed some time in April, 1793, 
for in November, 1793, Whitney wrote Thomas Jefferson, 
then Secretary of State: "Within about ten days after my 
first conception of the plan, I made a small, though im- 
perfect model. Experiments with this encouraged me to 
make one on a larger scale; but the extreme diflSculty of 
procuring workmen and proper materials in Georgia pre- 
vented my completing the larger one until some time in 
April last." 

The attention of the South was at once aroused. Crowds 
that were denied admission to the invention until it was 
patented broke open the house in which it was, carried 
away the model, and reproduced it, so that thousands of 
planters commenced using it without even as much as 
"by your leave" to Whitney. And even associations 
arose to protect users against Whitney's prosecution. As 
there seemed to be little chance of manufacturing in the 
South, Whitney returned to New Haven, and commenced 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 105 

the manufacture with Phineas Miller, who May 27, 1793, 
had entered partnership with him. The planters of the 
South showed no intention of admitting Whitney's right to 
his invention, and for a number of years Whitney and 
Miller sought in vain to secure returns for their work. 

A formidable obstacle was the belief by English mill 
owners that the cotton gin ruined the cotton fibre by making 
it too brittle, and it was with great difiiculty that this belief 
was overcome. It was not until after 1800 that Whitney 
was able to obtain a recognition from the Southern planters 
of his rights, and finally he secured a grant of fifty thousand 
dollars. 

North Carolina and Tennessee both fixed a tax of two 
shillings, sixpence, on every saw for ginning cotton for five 
years, the annual collection being paid to Whitney, but the 
government refused to renew his patent in 1812, so that he 
never realized the amount to which his invention entitled 
him. 

His partner died a disappointed man, and in 1798 Whitney 
turned his attention to the manufacture of firearms, estab- 
lishing a plant for the purpose of making a lathe and all 
the necessary machinery on the shores of Lake Whitney. 
The government encouraged him with an order for ten 
thousand muskets and advanced him twenty thousand 
dollars. It was not until 1817 that Whitney saw the end 
of his financial troubles. He married the youngest daughter 
of Judge Edwards, of the United States Circuit Court, who 
was a direct descendant of Jonathan Edwards, and died in 
New Haven, at the age of sixty years, on Jan. 8, 1825. 

IMPROVEMENTS OF THE BASIC MACHINES, AND FURTHER 

INVENTIONS. 

Cartwright's loom was the last of the basic inventions 
which wrought such a change in the textile industry. Most 
of the machinery used in the textile mills to-day involves 



106 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the principles of these early inventions, though many of 
the details have been improved and modified and addi- 
tional parts have been added that have greatly increased 
the labor saving as well as the productive capacity of the 
machines. 

Owing to the opposition of the English workmen who 
thought that invention would deprive them of their liveli- 
hood and also the necessity of stopping the loom to dress 
the warp, it was some years before Cartwright's loom was 
put into much use. The best authorities are of the opinion 
that power looms were adopted at first more rapidly in 
Scotland than in England, because in 1811 they were in use 
in Scotland; while it is quite certain that in 1813 power 
looms had not been much adopted in England. 

In 1794 a power loom was invented by John Bell, of Glas- 
gow, which was soon abandoned, and June 6, 1796, Robert 
Miller, of the same city, took out a patent for another 
loom, which John Monteith adopted in 1801, and equipped 
a mill at Glasgow with two hundred looms. Still another 
loom was invented by Mr. Toad, of Bolton, in 1803. The 
loom which William Horrocks, of Stockport, England, pat- 
ented in 1803, 1805, and improved in 1813, was the first 
to come into general use, and was known as the crank, or 
Scotch, loom. It was probably the kind that Francis C. 
Lowell, of Boston, saw, and which led to his working out 
later the first practical loom in America, the story of which 
is told later. As early as 1806 T. M. Mussey had built a 
loom at Exeter, N.H., which would weave, but was not 
practical commercially. 

The dressing machine, out of which grew the dandy 
loom, that was necessary to the economical operation of 
the loom, was worked out by Thomas Johnson, of Bred- 
bury, an ingenious weaver in the employ of Messrs. Rad- 
cliffe and Ross, of Stockport, England. William Radcliffe, 
who was alarmed by the exportation of cotton yarn, 
conceived that the only way to prevent the exportation 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 107 

was for the English to excel in weaving. He finally, on 
Jan. 2, 1802, called about him a number of his workmen, 
among whom was Thomas Johnson, an ingenious but dissi- 
pated young man, and explained to them his needs. So 
versatile were Johnson's expedients to compass the re- 
quired invention that his fellow-workmen called him the 
conjurer. Johnson's ability and Radcliffe's perseverance 
produced the ingenious dandy loom, by which the warp 
could be dressed before it was put on the loom, and pro- 
vided for the taking up of the cloth and drawing forward 
of the warp, so that the loom did not have to be stopped 
for the cloth to be moved on. The warp was thus brought 
within play of the shuttle. 

Radcliffe and his partner, Ross, in 1803 and 1804 took 
out patents for taking up the cloth by motion of the lathe, 
and also for new methods of warping and dressing. The 
patents were taken out in the name of Johnson, their em- 
ployee, who received a bonus of fifty pounds. English 
manufacturers were slow to take up the loom. Little by 
little, after Horrocks's invention, power looms were grad- 
ually adopted. In 1806 a factory for steam looms was 
built at Manchester, according to Guest, and soon after 
two others were erected at Stockport, while in 1809 a fourth 
was completed at West Houghton. In 1818 at Manchester 
and the neighborhood there were but fourteen factories, 
containing about two thousand looms, and in 1821 thirty- 
two factories, containing 5,732 looms. 

It is impossible to more than briefly indicate the other 
improvements since the day of Crompton. The later 
improvements and many of the most essential modifications 
have been the work of American inventors, who with true 
Yankee ingenuity took the basic English machines, elimi- 
nated their weak points and strengthened their good ones, 
adding a part here and a part there, until the automatic 
power loom, as finally worked out in the Northrop loom 
under the direction of the Draper Company, became an 



108 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

accomplished fact and is the last word in the history of 
textile machinery. 

James Davenport, an American mechanic, received, 
Feb. 14, 1794, on his carding and spinning machines the 
first patent in the United States for any kind of textile 
machinery. He established at the Globe Mills, at the 
north end of Second Street, Philadelphia, one of the ear- 
liest manufactories for weaving flax, hemp, and tow by 
water power. The labor was supplied by boys, who were 
able to spin in a day of ten hours 290 feet of flax or hemp, 
and one boy could deliver fifteen to twenty yards of sail 
cloth a day. 

Davenport went in 1797 to Boston to sell machinery, 
but was not successful, and died soon afterwards. The 
Globe machinery was sold in such small lots it was im- 
possible to put it together again. The looms said to have 
been used preceded, it is claimed, by many years any 
other efforts to turn out a practical power loom. 

One of the most important improvements worked out 
in this country is that of the Compound Gear, by which 
Mr. Asa Arnold, of Rhode Island, succeeded in combining 
the train of three bevel wheels so as to regulate the variable 
velocity needed for winding the filaments of cotton on the 
bobbin of the roving frame. Although the invention was 
put in operation in 1822, the patent was not taken out 
until Jan. 21, 1823. A model of this invention was taken 
to Manchester in 1825, and an Englishman, Henry Houlds- 
worth, Jr., appropriated it, taking out his own English 
patent for the English Equation Box. It was not known 
for some time that Arnold was the real inventor, and he 
did not, therefore, secure the pecuniary advantage that 
should have been his. 

The Danforth, or cap, spinner was the invention of 
Charles Danforth, of Paterson, N.J., and he secured patents 
Sept. 2, 1828. Here, again, an Englishman, John Hutchin- 
son, of Liverpool, appropriated the idea in 1830 by patent- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 109 

ing it, and the invention came into wide use in England 
and Europe, particularly for spinning the weft, or filling, 
before the later improvements in the self-acting mule. The 
Taunton speeder, so called from its place of origin in Mas- 
sachusetts, was the work of George Danforth, of Massachu- 
setts. This, which was also known as the tube frame, was 
patented Sept. 2, 1824. English patents for the same thing 
were taken out for a Mr. Dyer, of Manchester, in 1825. 
The Taunton speeder was adopted to a considerable extent 
in England in place of the fly frame. 

Gilbert Brewster, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., invented an- 
other roving frame in 1829, in which a temporary twist 
was given to the roving during the passage from rolls to 
spools by passing the roving between two leather bands, 
or belts, moving in opposite directions. This was known 
as the Eclipse Speeder, and was used for some time because 
of the small cost of the machine and the large amount of 
work it could produce. It gave place to the roving frame 
with the "equation box" or "compound" movement, either 
in the form of the "fly frame" or "speeder," the latter 
name being applied to those frames in which the arms of 
the flier are connected at the bottom and are independent 
of the spindle. This, too, was introduced into Manchester 
with great success in 1835, and there was known as the 
Eclipse Roving Machine. 

In 1829 Addison and Stevens, of New York, took out a 
patent for a traveller, or wire loop, sliding around on a 
single ring, and from this the present form of ring spinning 
has been derived and has been adopted by all large makers. 
To America was also due the invention of the plate speeder. 
The stop-motion in the drawing-frame was invented by 
Samuel Batchelder in 1832. By it loss of time was pre- 
vented by stopping the machine to fix breakage of the 
thread, and the speed of the machines could be greatly 
increased. No patent was taken out for it in this country, 
but the inventor derived some benefit from one taken 



110 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

out in England by Henry Houlds worth. The ring spinner 
was worked out by John Sharp, of Providence, in 1831, and 
with later improvements came into extensive use. 

To Mr. Paul Moody, who, we shall later learn, was one 
of those that helped to start the first complete cotton mill 
in America, is due the distinction of the introduction at 
Lowell in 1826 of the use of leather belts in place of iron 
gears for transmitting motion to the main shafting of a 
mill. 

Other improvements have from time to time been added 
to the textile machines. The last of importance was that 
of the Northrop loom. The problem of an automatic 
shuttle changer had long engaged the attention of George 
Draper & Sons, the predecessors of the Draper Company, of 
Hopedale, Mass. In July, 1888, one of the firm investi- 
gated an automatic shuttle changer at Providence, R.I. 
Concluding that it was not practical, the firm set aside ten 
thousand dollars, and started an inventor, Mr. Alonzo E. 
Rhoades, on the task of devising a practical shuttle-chang- 
ing loom. Mr. Rhoades by Feb. 28, 1889, had a loom 
ready for operation. A few years prior to this time 
Mr. James H. Northrop, an expert English mechanic, had 
come to this country and had secured work at Hopedale. 
He invented the Northrop spooler guide and other improve- 
ments in cotton machinery, but later left this employment 
to become a farmer. As farming was not congenial, he 
again entered the Drapers' employ and noting the work 
on the Rhoades machine, remarked one day in February, 
1889, that, if given a chance, he could put a shuttle changer 
on a loom in one week's time that would not cost over a 
dollar. On March 5, he showed, set up in the hen-house 
at his farm, a rough wooden model of his idea. This so 
pleased the Drapers that Mr. Northrop was set to work on 
his idea, and by July 5, 1889, he had completed a loom, and 
on October 24 of the same year a Northrop loom was in 
operation at the Seaconnet Mill in Fall River; and by 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 111 

April, 1890, several filling changing looms of the same kind 
were at work in Seaconnet Mill. It was soon found, how- 
ever, that the ordinary plain looms were not sufficiently 
uniform to be adaptable for the new attachments, and the 
Drapers set about designing a new loom that would incor- 
porate a warp stop-motion with the filling-changer. This 
entailed several years' delay, so that it was not until early 
in 1895 that complete Northrop looms were started in mills 
of customers. 

The Northrop loom is said to be the first commercial 
loom to supply filling automatically; the first loom to auto- 
matically supply a bobbin or cop skewer to a shuttle and 
automatically thread the same, either commercially or ex- 
perimentally; the first loom to incorporate a practical 
warp stop-motion for general weaving application; and the 
first loom to automatically supply itself with filling before 
exhaustion of the running supply. As a whole, it is the 
first to do away w^th the right and left hand system, and 
the first to generally adopt the high roll take-up. 

BLEACHING 

The use of machinery in the manufacturing of textiles had 
an immediate effect upon bringing about improvements 
in bleaching, dyeing, and printing. The old and slow 
methods used in these chemical processes could not keep 
pace with the increased output of goods turned out by the 
new methods of manufacturing, but soon improvements in 
the process of bleaching, dyeing, and printing enabled 
this branch of textile making to meet the output of the 
manufacturing processes. The agents by which the im- 
provements were effected were powerful chemicals, and the 
use of cylinder printing in place of the old hand block 
method which was so long in use. 

The Chinese and Hindus understood bleaching, and 
through the Arabs and Phoenicians it was passed on to the 



112 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Egyptians. For centuries the Phoenicians were famous 
for their purple dyes, and the tombs of the Egyptians attest 
the knowledge which they had not only of bleaching, but 
of dyeing and printing. According to Pliny different plants 
and ashes of plants were used as cleansers. The East and 
Egypt passed the knowledge on to the Greeks and Romans, 
though of their processes little is known, as the records of 
their skill in this respect were lost when the barbarian 
hordes in the early centuries of the Christian era overran 
the Roman Empire and Europe. 

It is impossible to see just where the industry first de- 
veloped in Europe, for it is probable that in Germany, Hol- 
land, and France it was known at a very early date. The 
Dutch, prior to the seventeenth century, had a monopoly 
of bleaching; and Haarlem was a great bleaching centre. 
Brown linen made in Scotland was sent in March to Holland 
to bleach, and returned about the end of October. 

Bleaching had begun in England prior to the beginning 
of the sixteenth century. At Southwark, near London, 
there was a bleachery about 1650. Shakespeare speaks 
of the "whiting time" or "bleaching period,'* and those 
described in the process were called "whitsters." The old 
method of bleaching was using first sour milk and cows' 
dung, then steeping the linen in waste lye and for a week 
pouring boiling hot potash lye over it. In some parts of 
India the acid of lemons was used instead of sour milk, 
and in other parts buffaloes' milk was used. The linen 
was then taken out and washed and put into wooden vats of 
buttermilk, in which under pressure the goods lay for five 
or six days. The linen was then spread on grass and kept 
wet for several months, exposed to sunshine and rain. This 
steeping in lyes was called bucking, while the bleaching 
on the grass was called crofting. 

The work was carried on in the open air, principally in 
the summer time, and under the old method it was often 
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THE STORY OF TEXTILES 113 

favorable, before the bleaching was completed. The cus- 
tom of outdoor exposure gave rise in England, and in parts 
of the Continent, to much stealing of the linen thus exposed, 
and stringent laws to prevent it were passed from time to 
time. 

An enactment of George II. reads, "Every person who 
shall by day or night feloniously steal any linen, fustian, 
calico, or cotton cloth; or cloth worked, woven, or made of 
any cotton or linen yarn mixed; or any linen or cotton tape, 
inkle, filleting, laces, or any fabric laid to be printed, whit- 
ened, crofted, bowked, or dried, to the value of ten shillings, 
or shall knowingly buy or receive any such wares stolen, 
shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy,'* which 
was punishable by death. In Switzerland, in order to pre- 
vent the material from being stolen, they still go so far as 
to protect it at night with dogs, whose small houses are 
placed here and there about the bleaching-yard. 

The final step of exposing linen to the sun and rain is 
still practised in Holland, Ireland, and Switzerland and 
other parts of the Continent, where the spinning of flax and 
the making of the best linen is yet a handicraft. No chem- 
ical process has yet been found that will bring about the 
purity of whiteness obtained by the natural methods of 
exposure. 

Scotland early gave its attention to bleaching. In 1728, 
in response to the proposal of James Adair, of Belfast, to 
the Scottish Board of Manufacturers, a bleaching-field was 
established in Galloway, and a premium of two thousand 
pounds for the establishment of other bleaching-fields 
throughout the country was granted. In 1732 a method 
of bleaching with kelp was introduced by R. Holden from 
Ireland, and a bleaching-field was set out near Dundee, 
which used the process. 

An improvement in the souring of cloth was made by 
Dr. Francis Home, of Edinburgh, to whom the Board of 
Trustees of the Board of Manufacturers paid one hundred 



114 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

pounds for his experiments in bleaching. This was the 
discovery that sulphuric acid could be used to great advan- 
tage, instead of sour milk, in the acidulating of the water. 
It accomplished the souring in a few hours, while the old 
method occupied days and weeks. Although sulphuric 
acid worked admirably, bleachers were afraid of the corro- 
sive effects of this souring process, and for some time in 
Ireland it was against the law to use it, although in 1774 
Dr. James Ferguson, of Belfast, had received a premium of 
three hundred pounds from the Irish Linen Board for the 
application of lime in bleaching linen. 

The greatest improvement in the process was the dis- 
covery in 1774 by C. W. Scheele, the Swedish chemist, 
that chlorine destroyed vegetable colors. This discovery 
was due to his accidental observation of the bleaching of 
the cork of the bottle which contained his chlorine, a gas- 
eous substance contained in salt. The fact attracted the 
attention of the French chemist, Claude Louis Berthollet, 
who applied chlorine with great success to the bleaching 
of fabrics. Berthollet read a paper before the Academy 
of Science in Paris, April, 1785, which was published in 
the Journal de Physique, in which he gave the result of 
his success in bleaching cloth. 

He showed the experiments in 1786 to James Watt, the 
inventor, who was also a chemist and who instituted simi- 
lar experiments in England. Watt used chlorine on the 
bleach-field of his father-in-law, Mr. Macgregor, near 
Glasgow in March, 1787, and this was probably the first 
time that the chlorine process was used in England. The 
process was made known by Professor Patrick Copeland, of 
Aberdeen, to Gordon, Barron & Co. of that city, and was 
used with success by them. 

The first use of chlorine was attended by serious disad- 
vantages, owing to the injurious and obnoxious odor to 
which the process gave rise. One of the first improvements 
was the use of eau de Javel, which was first used at the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 115 

Javel works near Paris. Finally, a solution of potash, one 
part in eight of water, until effervescence began, was used. 
Scheele and Berthollet had used muriatic acid and man- 
ganese in the production of chlorine. Watt used common 
salt, black oxide of manganese, and sulphuric acid, with 
which he impregnated water Confined in air-tight wooden 
vessels lined with tar. 

Unaware of the experiments that Watt had carried on, 
Thomas Henry, of Manchester, began experimenting with 
chlorine, and was so successful that in 1788 he bleached a 
half-yard of calico before the Manchester bleachers. So 
great was the impression made on the bleachers that a Mr. 
Ridgeway, of Horwich, near Bolton, asked to be instructed 
in the process, and the improvements effected by Mr. 
Ridgeway and his sons marked the beginning of the modern 
methods of bleaching in England. Mr. Henry and Mr. 
Tenant both used lime for depriving the liquid, which Watt 
used in bleaching, of its obnoxious odors, and Mr. Charles 
Tenant finally evolved a saturated solution of chloride of 
lime which worked perfectly as a bleaching agent, this 
removing this difficulty. 

After much opposition he obtained a patent in 1799 for 
saturating slack lime in a dry state with chloride, and the 
large manufacturing of the article which he started soon 
brought it into extensive use. From that time on the 
process of bleaching has been an improvement and sim- 
plification of the old method, and primarily follows that 
worked out by these Englishmen. Many minor improve- 
ments have come from Germany, which, with France, has 
adopted many of the English and American inventions. 

Wool, before bleaching, is thoroughly washed with 
soap and soda to remove the grease for the actual bleaching, 
and the wool or the scoured yarn is treated either with 
sulphuric acid or hydrogen of peroxide. Cotton and wool 
can be bleached in a very much shorter time than can linen, 
which requires about six weeks. 



116 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

DYEING 

Having accomplished the bleaching, the fabric is ready to 
be either dyed or printed. As a rule, wool and silk are dyed, 
while cotton is printed. The process of dyeing, like others 
of the textile industry, is prehistoric, for fugitive stains, 
juices of fruits, decoctions of flowers, leaves, barks, and 
roots, and later on the use of diflFerent kinds of earths which 
contained iron and aluminum by which the stains were made 
permanent were in use before man thought of commemorat- 
ing his deeds. It was originally a home industry, being 
practised with more perfection in Persia, India, China, and 
Egypt than elsewhere at the beginning of ancient history. 

It was introduced into Egypt by the Arabian and Phoe- 
nician traders. We know that the Phoenician purple was 
a royal color in the Biblical days and even farther back 
than this, for it is to be found in the earliest tombs. Pliny 
tells how Egypt, in the first century, carried on the process, 
and shows that the use of indigo was understood by the 
Egyptians. The Alexandrians and Phoenicians exported 
their dye-stuffs to Greece and Rome. But history is not 
clear as to what degree the Greeks and Romans under- 
stood the art of dyeing, because the barbaric hordes which 
overran Europe at the beginning of the Christian era de- 
stroyed the records. 

At the beginning of the mediaeval era the art had sprung 
up in Italy, and was due to the importation of Oriental 
products by the Venetian merchants. From Venice the 
art spread to Florence, for we find the Florentine Rucellai, 
about the thirteenth century, had rediscovered the ancient 
method of making purple dye from certain lichens of Asia 
Minor. The first European book to contain an account 
of the process in use in the Middle Age was published at 
Venice in 1429 under the title "Mariegola dell* arte de 
tentori." 

The Italians taught the process to Germany, France, 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 117 

Switzerland, and Flanders; and from Flanders England 
secured the beginning of its knowledge, for Edward III. 
procured dyers from Flanders, and in 1472 incorporated the 
Dyers' Company in London. The discovery of America 
in 1492, and the early voyages of the French, Portuguese, 
and Spaniards to East India by way of the Cape of Good 
Hope, introduced new dyestuffs, and the trade in these 
goods was soon transferred from Italy to Spain and Portu- 
gal for the East Indian products which came by way of the 
Cape of Good Hope and for the American products, such as 
cochineal, that came from Central and South America. 

With the spread of the knowledge of dyeing, the culti- 
vation of dye-plants soon began in Europe, particularly 
in Holland, France, and Germany. These countries began 
the cultivation of dye-plants in 1507. Spaniards in 1518 
began importation of red cochineal from Mexico and Peru. 
The Dutch chemist Drebels' discovery in 1630 of a method 
of dyeing wool scarlet with cochineal led to the spread of 
scarlet dyeing through Europe. It was carried on with 
much success by the Gobelin Dye Works at Paris in 1643, 
and at the dye works in Bow, England, in 1662. 

The Royal Society of London printed in 1662 the first 
English account of the dyeing processes, under the title 
"An Apparatus to the History of the Common Practice 
of Dyeing to Assist Dyers." In 1672 Colbert, minister of 
France, published instruction in dyeing for the use of 
woolen manufacturers in France. The French government 
appointed noted French chemists to study the dyeing 
processes and also the problem of manufacturing, and from 
1700 to 1825 many French scientists commenced work 
on the problem of dyeing, the most famous of these being 
Dufay, Hellot, Macquer, Berthollet, Board, and Chevreul. 

Prussian blue was worked out in 1770; Saxony blue, or 
indigo extract, 1740; sulphuric acid, 1774; murexide, in 
1776; picric acid, in 1788; carbonate of soda, in 1793; and 
bleaching powder, in 1789. 



118 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

The practical side of dyeing was being worked out by 
a number of men who were evolving the machinery for 
its proper handling. These were Thomas Henry, Home, 
and Bancroft in England; and in France, Dambourney, 
Confraville, and others. The aniline process quite revo- 
lutionized methods of dyeing, and was due to the discovery 
in 1834 by a German chemist, Runge, who noticed that an 
aniline product distilled from coal tar gave a bright blue 
coloration under the influence of the bleaching powder. 

But nothing was done until 1856, when Sir W. H. Perkins 
applied the discovery with success to fabrics, and soon 
the aniline dyes, such as magenta, aniline blue, Hoffman's 
violet, and others, were worked out. It was found that 
many of the distillations of coal-tar products, such as ben- 
zine, naphthaline, and others, yielded beautiful dyes, and 
little by little vegetable dyes in Europe were superseded 
by aniline coloring matter, so that by 1858 aniline colors 
were largely in use. 

Graebe and Lebermann, German chemists, in 1869 se- 
cured alizarine, the coloring matter of madder root, from 
anthracene, the first artificial production of vegetable 
dyes. Artificial indigo was worked out by Basyer in 1878. 
Since then many coloring products have been discovered, 
so the aniline process has largely taken the place of vege- 
table matters wherever the aniline colors have been found 
to be permanent. The fugitive nature of aniline dyes has 
precluded, however, the use of some of them where fast 
colors have been desired. 

During the evolution of the dyeing process, work was 
under way in the perfection of vats, boilers, and the neces- 
sary machinery for dyeing, so that by the time the dyeing 
process was brought to its present perfection the ma- 
chinery needed for the proper distillation of dyes was at 
hand. 

The process of dyeing has not been determined positively 
either as a physical or chemical process. It is based upon 



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the affinity between the fibre of the fabric and the color. 
Wool is very much more readily dyed than cotton, and 
silk occupies an intermediate position. In many instances, 
cotton requires the use of a metallic base to form the agent 
by which the dyestuff can fix itself to the cotton fabric. 
When once the dye has become fixed, either in wool, cotton, 
silk, or linen, the perfection of the process is measured by 
the degree to which the dye is unaffected either by light or 
water. 

PRINTING 

Textile printing originated in China and India; also was 
practised by the Incas of Peru, Chile, and Mexico previous 
to the Spanish invasion of 1519. The Chinese used en- 
graved wooden blocks, as did also the Egyptians. To 
them the process of printing was made known by the 
Phoenicians and Arab traders. 

Textile printing came into Europe in two ways, — by 
land and by sea. The great caravan routes through Persia 
and Asia Minor brought it to the southern part of Europe, 
while the Phoenicians brought the knowledge of the process 
from the Asiatic shores by way of the Cape of Good Hope. 
It was introduced into England in 1676 by a French refugee, 
who opened on the Thames at Richmond what are said 
to have been the first print works in England, and certainly 
the first print works of which we have any definite record, 
although printing was early carried on in France and 
Germany. A district about Auersburg was famous for 
its printing of linen. Calico printing spread more rapidly 
in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria than in 
England. France was noted for a long time for the ex- 
cellence of its calico printing and the refinement of its de- 
signs. In 1738 calico printing was being practised in Scot- 
land. Messrs. Clayton, of Bamberg Bridge, near Preston, 
established the first plant in Lancashire in 1764. 

The oldest process of printing was by hand blocks. It 



120 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

was originally practised in the East. In some sections 
it is still in use. It is a method of printing in which a 
number of wooden blocks of different grains are placed 
one upon the other, so that the grain of each block runs in 
a transverse direction to the grain of the upper or lower 
block. The design is then cut upon the face of this built- 
up block, each color having a separate design cut in such a 
way upon the built-up block that, when the printing takes 
place by means of the different blocks, each color will reg- 
ister with the next. This is the process by which the handi- 
craft printing is still carried on in many sections. 

Perrotine printing was originated by Perrot, of Rouen, 
in 1834. He set his blocks in machines which did automat- 
ically the printing formerly done by hand. 

Engraved, or plate, printing was discovered by Bell in 
1770, and resulted in the use of an engraved color plate 
for printing instead of wooden blocks, though wooden 
blocks are in use in some parts of Switzerland. The im- 
proved method of printing gave way to roller, or cylinder, 
printing, which was also worked out by Bell in 1785, and 
which is the process generally used to-day. Adam Parkin- 
son, of Manchester, evolved a method for keeping the roller 
in register so that one color could be easily printed upon 
another, and with slight improvements this is the method 
by which fabrics of cotton, wool, or linen, are printed to- 
day. 

MERCERIZING PROCESS 

The Mercerizing Process, discovered in 1844 by John 
Mercer, a calico printer of Lancashire, England, is closely 
analogous to the dyeing process, though mercerizing gives 
either a crepon effect or the high lustre of silk. It was 
found by Mercer that, when a piece of bleached calico was 
immersed in caustic soda, it not only changed in appear- 
ance, but became stiff and translucent. Upon being washed 
in running water it apparently returned to its original 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 121 

condition. But a more careful examination showed that 
the fabric was not only stronger, but the fibre had be- 
come more rounded, the central cavity smaller, and the 
fibre had a greater aflBnity for coloring matter. The process 
had little commercial success on account of the expense 
due to the cost of the caustic soda needed and also because 
of the shrinkage which took place in the cloth. It was re- 
vived in 1890-91 to secure a permanent crimp, or "crepon," 
effect on fabrics. Depoully, a Frenchman, had improved 
the process in 1884, so that a crimped effect could be given 
to goods of wool or silk or cotton. 

The process was made commercially successful by the 
discovery of H. A. Lowe in 1889 and 1890 of a method of 
giving the silk lustre. As he allowed his patents to lapse, 
Thomas and Prevost repatented his invention in 1895, and 
the public interest was thereby aroused, although the 
patents were annulled on the grounds of Lowe's previous 
patents and the wide commercial use of the process. 

The mercerizing process is done in two ways. In one 
the cotton stretched tight is washed in caustic soda, and 
while still stretched is washed clean in water. After the 
required degree of washing has taken place, the cotton is 
relaxed, and it is found to have acquired a permanent 
lustre. 

In the second method the cotton is first immersed in the 
caustic soda and is then removed, and, after being stretched 
beyond its original length, is washed until the tension 
lessens. In the yarn the best lustre is obtained from the 
two or multifold long staple fibre. Yarn is mercerized 
either in the hank or the warp, and in either case is stretched 
on rollers. When mercerized in the piece, the fabric is 
stretched before it has the soda bath, and is subsequently 
sprayed from pipes, dipped into diluted sulphuric acids, 
and finally washed with water. The lustre seems to be 
produced by the reflection of light from the lustrous surface 
of the bands of twisted cotton fibre. 



CHAPTER V 

AMERICAN INDUSTRY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

AMERICAN INDUSTRY — EARLIEST TRACES OF THE INDUSTRY — FOS- 
TERING LEGISLATION — FIRST CLOTH MADE AND FIRST MILL 
ERECTED AT ROWLEY — SLAVE TRAFFIC AND IMPORTATIONS — 
ENGLISH EFFORTS TO HAMPER THE INDUSTRY — FIRST WORSTED 
MILL — SKILL ATTAINED IN TEXTILE WORK — BOUNTIES AND MO- 
NOPOLIES TO STIMULATE THE INDUSTRY — THE SPINNING CRAZE 
— ^APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION — IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH 
TEXTILE MACHINERY — CONDITION OF THE MARKET IMME- 
DIATELY AFTER THE REVOLUTION — ^AMERICAN EFFORT TO SE- 
CURE ENGLISH MACHINES — ENGLAND AND COTTON — STARTING 
OF COTTON CULTIVATION IN THE SOUTH — ORIGIN OF SEA ISLAND 
COTTON AND BEGINNING OF ITS CULTIVATION IN THE SOUTH. 

In America the textile industry began almost as soon as 
the first settlers landed. Its rapid development was due 
to the fact that many of the first settlers came from a part 
of England where a knowledge of spinning and weaving 
was known in every rural household, and not a few who 
came to New England brought spinning wheels and hand 
looms. The distance from the old country threw the 
New England settlers largely upon their own resources, 
and the severity of the climate necessitated the warmest 
clothing, so that the colonists early instituted the industry 
of spinning at home. 

The religious persecutions which had so much to do with 
the settlement of the Plymouth Colony continued for 
twenty years, and thus kept up a constant stream of immi- 
gration to the colonies; but, when the Long Parliament 
in 1640 stopped these persecutions, the intercourse with 
the mother country not only decreased, but the importation 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 123 

by the colonies, of goods, particularly textiles, diminislied, 
and the settlers were obliged to provide for their own 
wants. The wool used by the settlers came from Bilboa 
or Malaga or was grown upon the few native sheep, the 
forbears of which were brought from England soon after 
the first settlers arrived. In all the colonies there were 
but one thousand sneep in 1642. 



EARLIEST TRACES OF THE INDUSTRY 

In 1638 spinning wheels were valued at three shillings. 
One of the earliest records in the Probate Court of Suffolk 
County of Massachusetts speaks in 1639 of four yards 
of home-made cloth at six shillings, twopence. We have 
further evidence in Peter Branch's inventory in 1639, where 
home-made cloth is specifically mentioned, that spinning 
and weaving had begun thus early. And at this early 
date mills for grinding grain, driven by water or wind, 
and which were to furnish the site for many a fulling mill 
and spinning or weaving establishment, dotted the lands of 
Plymouth, the Bay Colony, and Connecticut. Trade was 
opened about 1636 with the West Indies for cotton and 
rum, in exchange for which the Massachusetts settlers 
sent Indians, and later negro slaves. 

One of the first ships to bring a large supply of cotton 
to the colonies was the "Desire" of Salem, the biggest 
ship of her time, which landed her cargo in 1638 at the port 
from which she hailed. The first ship to bring cotton 
to Boston was the "Trial," and she landed a cargo in Bos- 
ton soon afterwards, from St. Christopher's Island of the 
West Indies. 

Many other interesting facts relating to this period may 
be found among the Proceedings of the National Associa- 
tion of Cotton Manufacturers, compiled by its secretary. 



124 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

FOSTERING LEGISLATION 

The colonial legislatures soon gave the industry favorable 
attention, passing acts compelling the practice of spinning 
and weaving, directing the planting of flax and the raising 
of sheep, and offering bounties for the production of fabrics. 
The governing body of the Bay State Colony, called the 
General Court then as now, as early as 1640 gave a helping 
hand to the infant industries by passing two orders. The 
first was for the purpose of encouraging the manufacture 
of linen, and directed the towns to see what seeds were 
needed for the growth of flax, to learn what persons were 
skilful at breaking and in the use of wheels, and ordained 
that boys and girls be taught to spin yarn. The second 
order offered for a period of three years a bounty of three- 
pence on a shilling for linen, woolen, or cotton cloth, if 
spun or woven, in the flrst two instances of wool or linen 
of native growth. 

The solicitude of the General Court of Massachusetts 
Bay for the textile industry is shown in the order dated May 
13, 1640, which is thought by the best authorities to be the 
earliest reference in New England by the General Court 
to the manufacture of cloth: — 

"The Court, taking into serios consideration the ab- 
solute necessity for the raising of the manifacture of linnen 
cloth, &c., doth declare that it is the intent of this Court 
that there shall bee an order setled about it, and there- 
fore doth require the magistrats and deputies of the severall 
towns to acquaint the townesmen therewith, and to make 
inquiry what seed is in every town, what men and woomen 
are skillful in the braking, spinning, weaving; what means 
for the providing of wheeles; and to consider with those 
skillful in that manifacture, what course may be taken 
to raise the materials, and produce the manifacture, and 
what course may be taken for teaching the boys and girls 
in all townes the spinning of the yarn; and to returne 



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THE STORY OF TEXTILES 125 

to the next Court their severall and joynt advise about 
this thing. The Hke consideration would bee had for the 
spinning and weaveing of cotton woole." 

The slowness of the importation of flax led the General 
Court in 1640 to recommend the gathering of wild hemp, 
which had been used by the Indians for rope and mat mak- 
ing, and twopence per pound was offered for it by many 
people. This native hemp had originally been brought from 
Connecticut by one Oldham, who claimed it was better 
than English hemp. Although it raised great expectations 
among the colonists, it failed to fill the place of English 
hemp, which continued to be a regular importation. 

Goodman Nutt and others in 1641 received a bounty 
of twelvepence per yard for eighty-three and one-half 
yards of homespun, which was probably a coarse linen, 
and this is the first mention of cloth made in America. 
This bounty was repealed the following June. The General 
Assembly of Connecticut in 1641 ordered that hemp and 
flax should be sown by each family, and the seed preserved, 
"that we myght in tyme haue supply of lynnen cloath 
amongst ourselues"; Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts 
ordered that runs of stone where corn and meal could be 
ground be established on all available water sites; and many 
other steps were taken to make the colonies independent 
industrially of the mother country. 

Shortly after came what one might call the first business 
panic, for John Winthrop, Jr., says that "corn in 1641 
would buy nothing. Many men had gone out of the country, 
so that no man could pay his just debts, nor merchants 
make returns to England for commodities, and commerce 
was at its lowest." It doubtless gave a new impulse to 
the home industries through the necessity of supplying 
the colonial demand, as this financial condition of the colony 
practically precluded trade with England. 

According to the author of "New England's First Fruits," 
written at Boston in 1642, "With cotton wool! (which we 



126 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

have at very reasonable rates from the islands) and our 
Hnnen yarne we can make dimities and fustians for our 
summer cloathing; and having a matter of 1000 sheepe 
which prosper well, to begin withal, in a competent tinie 
we hope to have woUen cloath there made." 

Home spinning impelled by the necessities of the settlers, 
and encouraged by the enalctments of the legislature, in 
1643 filled an important place in the Puritan industries, 
and a segregation of those engaged in the manufacture of 
textiles had begun, which later was to bear fruit in the 
great textile centres of Massachusetts. 

FIRST CLOTH MADE AND FIRST MILL ERECTED AT ROWLEY 

Twenty or more Yorkshire families had settled at Rowley 
about 1638, and to them belongs the distinction of manu- 
facturing the first cloth in the United States, as well as 
erecting the first mill. 

According to Edward Johnson's book, "Wonder-working 
Providences of Sion's Saviour in New England," published 
at London, 1654, "The Lord brought over the zealous- 
affected and judicious servant of His, Master Ezekiel 
Rogers, with an holy and humble people, made his progress 
to the northeastward and erected a town about six miles 
from Ipswich called Rowley. The people, being very 
industrious every way, soon built many houses to the num- 
ber of about three score families and were the first people 
that set upon making cloth in this western world; for which 
end they built a fulling mill (1643) and caused their little 
ones to be very diligent in spinning cotton-woole, many of 
them having been clothiers in England till their zeale to 
promote the gospel of Christ caused them to wander." 

This mill, built by John Pearson, was the first cloth mill 
erected in the United States. Rowley's manufactures 
comprised "cloath and rugs of cotton wool, and also sheeps' 
wool," showing that thus early cotton, which Columbus 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 127 

had found was being manufactured into breeches by the 
natives of the West Indies, was an article of New England 
manufacture. 

Because of the fact that nearly all of the early textile 
mills were located in the upper part of stone water mills, 
the corn being ground on the first floor, it is possible to' 
trace back to these water rights the titles of some of the 
largest textile mills in New England to-day; and many of 
the old deeds refer to these "runs of stone" as the very 
beginning of their rights. The proprietors of the locks 
and canals on the Lowell and Merrimac Rivers maintain 
to this day a run of stone grinding the grist for the towns- 
people of Lowell. The stones are in the old grist-mill, 
corner of Ann and French Streets, and the old locks are 
near the Lowell machine-shop yard. 

SLAVE TRAFFIC AND IMPORTATIONS 

One of the reasons for the early commercial relations 
between the Leeward Islands (especially the Barbadoes, set- 
tled in 1623) and New England was that two of Governor 
Winthrop's sons settled in these islands, one at Barbadoes 
and one at Antigua. This fact, as well as the mutual needs 
of the two places, early led to commercial intercourse, and 
soon a steady trade was in progress. The importation of 
cotton and rum from the Barbadoes by the Puritans in- 
creased, and, when it became difficult to secure Indian slaves, 
the Puritans brought negro slaves from Africa, and sold 
them to the West Indians in place of the Indians, so that 
New England was not only the first to promote the mer- 
chandising of slaves in America, but later, when the hei- 
nousness of the traffic appalled the New England conscience. 
New England was also the first to take steps to end the 
traffic. 

The wool used by the early mills, which came from Spain 
and England, was spun into yarn by the neighboring farmers, 



128 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

who also raised the sheep that supplied the domestic wool. 
EfiForts were made to raise flax and hemp, but, to meet the 
colonial demand, it had to be imported in considerable 
quantities. 

The colonies all along the Atlantic coast as far south as 
Philadelphia, soon after their establishment, realized the 
necessity of extending production by manufactures which 
were not indigenous to the country, or the need of what 
is now known as protection to industry. But this phase 
of protection took the shape of special legislation by boun- 
ties and relief from duties. As late as May 1, 1770, the 
Essex Gazette of Salem printed the following: — 

"Last Thursday the premium of four guineas on the best 
piece of Broad Cloth, bro't to Edes & Gill's Printing Office, 
in Boston, for sale, of 12 yards long and 7 quarters wide, 
was adjudged to Mr. Toby, Cambridge & Co., of Lynn, 
who from the 1st of June, 1769, to May 1st, 1770, have 
made upwards of 500 yards of Broad Cloth, and upwards 
of 3000 yards of narrow cloths from the 1st of June, 1769, 
to the 1st of April, 1770." 

The early bounties for making cloth greatly promoted 
the growth of the textile industry, and, though the colonial 
enactments were soon repealed, the industry had become 
so firmly established by the middle of the seventeenth 
century that wool was a regular article of merchandise, 
and statutes were passed by the Bay State colonies pre- 
scribing that it should be washed when offered for sale. 



ENGLISH EFFORTS TO HAMPER THE INDUSTRY 

Oliver Cromwell, the stern ** protector" of England from 
1653 to 1658, watched with anxious eye the effect of the 
colonial textile development upon England's own industry, 
and soon prohibited the export of sheep's wool and woolen 
yarn from England. This act, which was passed Aug. 22, 
1654, for the purpose of encouraging the raising of sheep 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 129 

in England as well as to prevent the exportation of wool 
from England, had a preamble which read as follows : — 

"Whereas, this countrie is at this tyme in great straights 
in respect to clothing and the most likeljest way tending 
to our supply in that respect is the rjsing and keeping 
of sheepe with our iurisdiction and in detail the export- 
ing of yews is forbidden as well as the injunction that 
none shall be killed until they are two years old." 

One of the results of these stringent restrictions was 
a marked effect on colonial sheep raising, for in 1660 a 
report was made by the English consul that the colonies 
not only had one hundred thousand sheep, but were buying 
wool from the Dutch. Already trade had begun with Spain 
for wool in exchange for New England staves and salt 
fish. 

The Massachusetts General Court met the restriction in 
1656 with enactments that ordered the commons to be 
cleared for sheep, rams to be inspected, and hemp and flax 
seed to be saved and sown. The selectmen in every town 
were directed to "turn women, girls, and boys towards 
weaving," and officials were required *'to assess each family 
for one or more spinners or fractional part, that every one 
thus assessed do after this present year 1656 spin for thirty 
weeks every year a pound per week of lining cotton wool- 
ing and so proportionately for halfe or quarter spinners 
under penalty of twelve pence for each pound short." 

Classes of five, six, and ten in number, under class teach- 
ers, were taught spinning. Already in 1655 John Pierpont 
and others "had sett down a bast mill or under shot where 
the old mill stood in Roxbury," and the same year he 
was allowed to erect a fulling mill. The competition in 
1660 in this infant industry had reached a condition where 
cloth was being cheapened by the use of inferior material, 
and the General Court took cognizance of it by appointing 
a commission that was empowered to report an ordinance 
against deceit in making and dressing cloth. Fulling 



130 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

mills were established at Watertown in 1662, Andover 
in 1673, Ipswich in 1675, and Barnstable in 1687. Not 
only was the domestic demand for dresses of tammies 
and light worsted fabrics as well as that for men's clothing 
being met by the Bay Colony, but in 1675 wool was 
exported to France in return for linen, and to Spain and 
Portugal for wine. The proficiency of the Puritans alarmed 
the English textile workers, especially as the colonial 
export trade was beginning to make some inroads upon 
English exports, and in 1699 Parliament passed a law pro- 
hibiting the exportation or movement of wool either within 
or without the plantations. This very stringent act read 
in part as follows: — 

"No wool, woolfells or shortlings, morlings, wool -fabrics, 
worsteds. Bay or woolen yarn, cloath, serge, bags, kerseys, 
says, frizes, druggets, shalloons or any other drapery, 
stuffs or woolen manufactured whatsoever, made or mixed 
with wool or wool flax, being the production or manufacture 
of any of the English plantations in America, shall be laden 
on any ship or vessel." Nor could same wares be laid upon 
any horse or carriage to be transported to any place what- 
soever. 

FIRST WORSTED MILL 

The first worsted mill was established in 1695 by John 
Cornish, a comber, dyer, weaver, and fuller of Boston. He 
dyed with two furnaces, used two combs, and wove with 
four looms. His fulling mill was detached from the rest 
of the plant. The spinning was done by farmers, who on 
market days called at the mill for the clean top wool from 
which the noil had been removed and brought back the 
spun worsted. When Cornish died, serge was in the mak- 
ing on his looms. He left an estate of about twelve hun- 
dred dollars. German immigrants had in 1683 and 1689 
established the manufacture of hosiery in Germantown, Pa., 
and also the manufacture of linen. 




s^- y^u 



THE LOOM THAT PRECEDED THE POWER LOOM 

{According to Richard Guest) 



Figure 1. The warp is wound upon the yarn beam A; the lesse is 
carefully preserved by rods B; one-half of the threads pass through one 
heald, and the other half through the other. The healds C are looped in 
the middle, and the threads of the warp go through the loops. From 
the healds the warp passes through the reed D, which is fixed in a mov- 
able frame called the lathe, E. A cross-piece, F, on the upper part of the 
lathe rests on each side of the loom, and the lathe swings on this cross- 
piece. The weaver sits on the seat G, and with his foot presses down one 
of the treadles H, which raises one of the healds and each alternate thread 
of the warp. The weaver holds the picking peg in his right hand, and with 
it drives the shuttle from one side of the lathe to the other, between and 
across the threads of the warp. The shuttle passes between the reed and 
the weaver, and leaves behind it a shoot of weft. By pulling the lathe 
towards him with his left hand, this shoot of weft is driven close to the 
cloth made by former casts of the shuttle. The cloth is wound upon the 
cloth beam I. 

Figure 2. The lathe used when the shuttle was thrown by the hand. 

Figure 3. Mr. Kay's lathe. K, the reed; LL, iron rods; MM, mov- 
able slides which work on the rods from N to 0, and are fastened to P, 
the picking peg, by a string Q; RR, boxes, and the weaver by a sudden 
jerk with the picking peg moves the shde from N to 0, and drives the 
shuttle along the sled, or shuttle race, S, into the box on the other side. 

Figure 4- The shuttle. TT, wheels on which the shuttle moves along 
the sled. U, the weft, fixed in the shuttle upon a skewer. As the shuttle 
flies across the warp, the weft unrolls from the skewer and runs through a 
small hole, V, in the side of the shuttle. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 131 

SKILL ATTAINED IN TEXTILE WORK 

There are many records to show that the colonists of 
New England and New York had attained considerable 
skill in textile work before the opening of the eighteenth 
century and were supplying a growing domestic demand. 

According to Bishop's "History of Manufactures," Amer- 
ica at this time was supplying quite exclusively her own 
demand for the stouter and coarser kinds of mixed fabrics, 
particularly those into which linen and hemp thread en- 
tered. Cotton, which was being imported from the Barba- 
does and occasionally from Smyrna and elsewhere, was 
being woven with linen into fustian and other fabrics. 

Linen, however, continued to be the principal material 
used in the manufacture of textiles, being employed at this 
early date where cotton would now be used. Much atten- 
tion was therefore given to the planting and raising of 
flax and hemp which the linen manufacture called for in 
growing quantities. Much of the domestic linen was of 
a coarse texture, and was combined in various ways with 
wool into kerseys, linsey-woolseys, serges, and druggets. 
These comprised the outer clothing of most of the popula- 
tion in winter, while hempen cloth or linen, fine or coarse 
according to the station of the wearer, was the outer apparel 
for warm-weather wear. 

The domestic industry supplied the shirts and under- 
wear, bed and table apparel, of nearly all classes, but, as 
the process of manufacture was crude, the finer finish of 
imported fabrics was little known in America. The fabrics 
were serviceable rather than beautiful, and the material 
used was grown upon the farms, or plantations. The various 
steps in the preparation of the flax, such as the breaking 
and heckling, were performed by the men, while the lighter 
forms of labor, such as the carding, spinning, and often the 
weaving, together with the bleaching and dyeing, were 
delegated to wives and daughters. 



132 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

All thrifty families took much pride in the abundance 
and quality of their linen, and everywhere about the col- 
onies domestic linen was much in evidence. An English 
visitor. Lord Cornbury, said in 1705 he had seen serge 
made upon Long Island that any man might wear, and 
in 1708 he reported "they make very good linen for common 
use." In 1708 Caleb Heathcote wrote "that three-quarters 
of the linen and wool used by the Colonists was of domestic 
manufacture." As early as 1706 Joseph Lewis had a 
weaving establishment at Waterbury, Conn., and in 1718 
Massachusetts laid an import duty on manufactures, and 
the province, according to the laws of trade, worked wool 
into coarse cloth, druggets, and serges. Samuel Hall in 
1722 was not only making buckram cloth in Boston, but 
was dealing in it as a retail merchant. 

In 1724 Richard Rogers, of New London, Conn., was 
weaving duck on eight looms. He expended one hundred 
and forty pounds, and in the following year increased it 
to two hundred and fifty pounds for enlarging his plant, 
and the General Court gave him a monopoly for ten years. 
In 1726 the Salem Court awarded Nathaniel Potter thirteen 
pounds and fifteen shillings for three pieces of linen manu- 
factured at Lynn. 

In most of the New England farmsteads and villages 
spinning wheels and looms for wool were to be found, and 
by 1746 spinning was an occupation in every household, 
rich as well as poor, while spinning festivals on the com- 
mon were holiday pastimes. The great interest in spinning 
revived the old talk of a town school for teaching it, which 
finally led to the erection of a brick building for special 
instruction. A tax on carriages to support this indus- 
trial institution was proposed, but was abandoned soon 
afterward. 

In the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con- 
necticut the textile industry had become thoroughly estab- 
lished, and the governing bodies were fostering it with lib- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES . 133 

eral bounties. The General Assembly of Rhode Island in 
1722 voted William Borden, of Newport, an ancestor of 
the well-known Borden family of Fall River, twenty shillings 
for each bolt of duck made of hemp grown in the province 
equal to good Holland duck. The bounty was to last ten 
years. But it was not enough, for in response to a petition 
five hundred pounds was granted him May, 1725, from the 
colonial treasury, "if there be so much to spare.'* 

He again asked for assistance in 1728, whereupon the 
Assembly issued three hundred pounds in bills of credit 
at his expense and loaned the amount to him without 
interest, with surety that it would be repaid in ten years. 
By the terms of the resolution he was required to make 
one hundred and fifty bolts every year of good merchant- 
able duck. In 1731 the amount he should make was changed 
so that the bounty was granted upon any quantity. Boun- 
ties also were given to growers of flax and hemp, to encourage 
the making of linen. Such progress had the colonies made 
that by 1732 one-third of the woolens needed were of home 
manufacture, two-thirds being imported from England. 



BOUNTIES AND MONOPOLIES TO STIMULATE THE INDUSTRY 

Rhode Island was paying bounties to growers of flax 
as well as to manufacturers, while Massachusetts in 1726 
granted a monopoly for hemp manufacturing to a petitioner 
and a bounty for "each piece thirty-five yards long, thirty 
inches wide, of good, even thread, well drove, of good, 
bright color, being wholly of good, strong, water-retted 
hemp." Nathaniel Potter in 1726 was granted thirteen 
pounds and fifteen shillings by the Salem Court for three 
pieces of linen made at Lynn. Hemp was received in 
1739 at fourpence a pound for taxes, and flax for sixpence a 
pound. In almost every hamlet, by 1746, weaving mills 
might be found. 

The promotion of the textile industry early in 1748 had 



134 . THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

attracted such public interest that a movement was started 
in Boston not only for the promotion of manufactures, 
which would relieve the province from the drain of sending 
money to England to meet the excess of imports over ex- 
ports, to develop domestic manufactures and the immigra- 
tion of skilled mechanics, but also to ajfford employment 
to the poor. 

Accordingly, a number of the leading citizens of Boston 
on March 10, 1748, in order to compass these purposes, 
organized and subscribed from fifty to one hundred pounds 
each to promote the linen manufacture. Another meeting 
was held on the 12th of July, 1750, which seems to have 
resulted only in further talk of the establishment of a linen 
manufactory house on the Common, and it was also pro- 
posed to open several spinning schools in the town where 
children might be taught free of charge. 

But it seemed difficult for the industry to get a start, 
and finally the Society for Encouraging Industries and 
Employing the Poor was organized Aug. 21, 1751, under 
whose energetic auspices the linen manufactory was finally 
started. The society is believed to have been the first 
formed in this country for the development of an industry 
and to provide employment for the poor. The Linen 
Manufactory House thus established was not the same 
as the manufactory house which was built in 1753 on Long- 
acre Street, now Tremont Street, at the junction with Ham- 
ilton Place, by the General Court of Massachusetts. 

The Linen Men's House on the Common advertised for 
yarn in 1750. Homespun garments of all kinds, hemp, 
flax, and wool, were now being made by the colonists, and 
spinning and weaving seemed to be the one industry that 
received the patronizing care of the colonial government. 
The records of the General Court are full of enactments 
relating to this industry. 

Cotton up to this time was largely imported from the 
West Indies, as the home spinners often filled the flax or 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 135 

wool warp with a cotton weft, and, as reported in 1756 by 
Governor Moore of New York, there were two kinds of 
woolen being made, — one, coarse, of all wool; the other, 
linsey-woolsey, of linen in the warp and woolen in the woof. 
Weavers were then wandering all over the country, weaving 
yarns that had been spun on the household looms. 



THE SPINNING CRAZE 

The settlement of one hundred Irish families in 1718 
at Nutfield, now Londonderry, N.H,, on the left bank of 
the Merrimac, a few miles below Manchester, gave an im- 
pulse to the production of linen, and also influenced the 
starting of what has been termed the Boston Spinning 
Craze. 

These Irish immigrants spun and wove the standard 
linen fabrics for which Ireland has long been famous, and 
their skill and industry stimulated the people of Boston to 
increase the amount and quality of the homespun produc- 
tion by thorough instruction in spinning and weaving. 
Classes in the industry had been held from time to time 
on the Common and in the upper part of the old State 
House, but no steps were taken to teach the art systemat- 
ically until 1720, when a committee was appointed to see 
what could be done. They recommended procuring a 
house and hiring a weaver whose wife should instruct chil- 
^_dren in spinning flax. Their board was to be furnished for 
three months by the overseers of the town, and at the ex- 
piration of the three months the children were to have their 
own earnings. It was further recommended that the town 
should provide twenty spinning wheels, and a prize of five 
pounds was offered for the first piece of linen spun and woven 
that was worth four shillings per yard. 

The next year the plan was changed to an offer of a loan 
of three hundred pounds without interest to any one who 
would start such a school. Other plans were suggested, 



136 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

but it was not until 1721 that any decisive action was taken. 
Daniel Oliver then erected the first spinning school on 
"land below Harrison's Walk,'* at his own expense, and the 
school which had begun on the Common had a shelter. 

Prizes were offered, and many strutted about in homespun 
clothes of their own making. The people wore woolen 
clothing mixed with linen or flax for summer wear, and spin- 
ning continued to grow in favor, and soon became popular 
among rich and poor alike. Justice Samuel Sewall speaks 
of a spinning-bee on the Common in which five hundred 
fashionable women took part. Spinning had become an 
occupation in every household. 

At the second anniversary of Boston's Society for Pro- 
moting Industry and Frugality on Aug. 8, 1753, the Rev. 
Samuel Cooper preached a sermon before the society, and 
a collection of four hundred and fifty-three pounds was 
raised. Three hundred young women appeared that after- 
noon on the Common in a procession, accompanied by 
music, and men carrying a platform on which a weaver 
was operating a loom, and, seating themselves in three 
rows, they spun at their spinning wheels. Weavers, cleanly 
dressed in garments of their own manufacture, were also 
present. 

Some of the enthusiasm may have been aroused by an 
act passed on the 23d of June, 1753, by the "Great and 
General Court of his Majesties Province of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay in New England," which granted fifteen hun- 
dred pounds to encourage the manufacture of linen. It 
provided that a tax be levied on every coach, chariot, chaise, 
calash, and chair within the province, to be paid by the 
owner thereof annually, except the governor, lieutenant 
governor, the president of Harvard, and the ministers of 
the province. The money was to be applied to the buy- 
ing of a piece of land and building or purchasing a suitable 
house for carrying on linen manufacture. 

Accordingly, a lot was bought Sept. 15, 1753, on Com- 




HIGH'S JENNY 
{According to Richard Guest) 

Figure 1. — A, the spindles, turned by strings from the drum B; C, the 
rovings; D, the wire loops; E, the clove, which rises and falls in the groove 
FF, and is opened and shut by the latch G. When the clove is down at 
the spindles, at H it is opened and the drum is turned, which raises the 
clove by means of the cord //, which, passing over pulleys, is coiled round 
the bobbin K. . As the clove rises, the rovings slide through it. When the 
clove is raised five or six inches to L, it is shut fast by the latch G, the 
drum is again turned, which sets the spindles in motion and raises the clove 
by the coiling of the cord round the bobbin. The rising of the clove draws 
out the five or six inches of roving shut fast between the spindles and the 
clove into weft. When the clove is raised to M, the roving is sufficiently 
drawn out. The bobbin is then moved by a latch from the lower part of 
the axle, nearer to the handle where the axle is of less diameter than the 
bore of the bobbin. The drum is then turned, and the spindles again re- 
volve, giving to the weft the necessary twist. During this twisting of 
the weft, the clove and the bobbin remain stationary, the axle of the drum 
turning within the bobbin, and a leaden weight, N, counterbalancing the 
clove. When twisted, the clove is lowered from M to H hy the hand of 
the spinner, and the weft copped, or wound upon the spindles. The drop 
rod guides the weft upon the spindles. 

Figure 2. — The axle of the drum square at P, and round and of less 
diameter at Q. 

Figure 3. — ^The bobbin, which when at P turns with the axle, but when 
at Q remains stationary. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 137 

mon Street, and a handsome brick building erected, which 
was later known as the Manufactory House. The west 
end fronted on Longacre, now Tremont, Street, and on the 
wall was the sign of its purpose in the form of a female 
figure holding a distaff. The building was in operation 
under the auspices of the society until 1758. 

An advertisement in the Boston News Letter of Sept. 9, 
1762, showed that the spinning school was then again opened 
under the direction of John Brown, who was engaged 
in the making of linen. John Brown continued in peaceful 
possession until 1768, when an effort was made to dispossess 
him in order to use the building as barracks for the British 
soldiers, who then occupied Boston. When Brown refused 
to get out, the sheriff and the chief justice proceeded to 
the house, but Brown locked the doors, and informed them 
through the window that only an order from the General 
Court could move him. Next day the sheriff came again 
with his deputies, and climbed in the cellar window. Brown 
showed his mettle by immediately declaring the sheriff 
his prisoner. Then a guard was sent to protect the sheriff, 
but it was finally called off, and Brown was left in possession; 
and the soldiers were accommodated elsewhere. 



APPROACH OP THE EEVOLTJTION 

The English policy of making the colonies dependent, 
as far as possible, upon the home country for manufactured 
goods, particularly textiles, had much to do with hastening 
the slow approach of the Revolution. But, despite this 
short-sighted policy, in many different parts of the colonies 
homespun garments were being made of cotton and wool 
in greater and greater quantities with more and more 
skill. 

The enactment of the Stamp Act and the approach of 
the Revolution caused a greater demand for domestic 
goods, and also brought the social prestige of the leaders of 



138 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

public opinion to further the spread of the textile industry 
by their advocacy of a refusal to use English goods. 

The desire to promote domestic manufacture caused in 
New York the formation in November, 1764, of "the Society 
for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture, and Economy," 
the principal object of which was to encourage the manu- 
facture of linen. For a number of years its encouragement 
took the form of premiums for the largest quantity of linen 
yarn and linen cloth spun by a resident of the province. 
In 1767 Governor Moore of that province reported to the 
British Board of Trade that there was a small manufactory 
of linen in New York City under the management of a man 
named Obadiah Wells, which was supported by the society. 
It used about fourteen looms and gave bread to several 
poor families. Coarse wool and linsey - woolsey was also, 
he said, being made in New York. 

Providence, R.I., set an example in 1766, when the Daugh- 
ters of Liberty held all-day sessions of spinning, and, as a 
result of their influence, the president and the first gradu- 
ating class of Rhode Island College at Commencement in 
1769 were clothed in fabrics of American manufacture. 
Men's and women's wear now included blue, black, and claret 
broadcloth. The Senior Class in 1768 at Harvard College, 
Cambridge, was much commended for agreeing to graduate 
dressed wholly in native fabrics. 

At the opening of the Revolution New England was 
supplying the demand for cheap clothing; while silk, owing 
to the encouragement that England, hoping to take this 
trade from France, gave to this branch of the textile in- 
dustry, had made a good start in Connecticut, Pennsyl- 
vania, Georgia and South Carolina. Silk culture was en- 
couraged all over New England, and there is scarcely one of 
the New England cities that has not its Mulberry Street, 
named from the trees which were set out to furnish food 
for silkworms. 

For all the finer cotton and woolen garments, however, 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 139 

America was still dependent upon England, because English 
spinners and weavers were more skilful, and also had the 
advantage of the improvements in textile machinery, the 
exportation of which England so jealously guarded. Just 
before the Revolution, efforts were made in America to start 
manufacturing with machinery, but the absence of artisans 
who knew how to construct the machines of Hargreaves 
and Arkwright rendered these attempts futile. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH TEXTILE MACHINERY 

The great improvements in the textile machinery in 
England from 1738, when Lewis Paul took out the first 
patent for improvement in spinning cotton, to 1775, when 
Arkwright completed his great invention, revolutionized the 
English industry and promised to give England control of 
the world's textile market. England, not slow to perceive 
the great advantage within her grasp, adopted stringent 
measures to prevent a spread of the knowledge of the va- 
rious textile machines, and Parliament in 1774, to restrict 
to England a monopoly of the textile machinery which 
the inventive genius of her workmen was rapidly perfect- 
ing, as well as to prevent the development of the industry 
in America, prohibited the exportation of the machinery, 
and attempted to prevent with severe penalties the emi- 
gration of textile artisans. 

One of the first steps to improve American manufacturing 
was taken by that far-sighted early Quaker merchant 
of Philadelphia, Samuel Wetherill, Jr., who, March 16, 
1775, entered an agreement of copartnership with a number 
of others in Philadelphia under the title "The United 
Company of Philadelphia, for Promoting American Manu- 
factures." It set up the American manufactory for woolens, 
cottons, and linens in a house rented for forty pounds a 
year, at the south-west corner of Ninth and Market Streets, 
about where a part of the post-office now is, and the factory 



140 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

continued to prosper until the occupation of Philadelphia 
by the British put it out of business. The yarn was spun 
upon a spinning jenny made by Christopher Tully and 
capable of spinning twenty-four threads. He was the first 
in America to build a machine from a model of Hargreaves. 
The attempt to use the jenny was not wholly successful, 
but the manufactory paid a dividend and ran in all about 
two years. 

During the Revolution the imports from England fell 
off, and the colonies, being thrown upon their own resources, 
continued to develop the industry which clothed them; 
and better and better fabrics were turned from their looms. 
The first to make jeans, fustians, everlastings, and coatings 
in America on a commercial scale, was probably the afore- 
said enterprising Samuel Wetherill, Jr. His goods were 
sold at his dwelling-house and factory, on what was then 
South Alley, between Market and Arch Streets and between 
Fifth and Sixth Streets, Philadelphia. This was prior to 
April 3, 1782, when his advertisement appeared in the 
Pennsylvania Gazette. 

John Hewson, the first calico printer, came to this country 
from England at the invitation of Benjamin Franklin, and 
worked at his trade in Philadelphia. He was taken prisoner 
at the battle of Monmouth, and escaped. Thereupon the 
British, because of his skill in a branch of manufacture 
in which England wished to suppress colonial competition, 
offered a reward of fifty guineas for his head. After the 
Revolution he continued in business, and in 1789 received 
from the State treasury a loan of two hundred pounds, to 
enable him to carry on the business of calico printing and 
bleaching. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 141 

CONDITION OF THE MAKKET IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE 
REVOLUTION 

The close of the Revolution gave the English manufact- 
urers of fabrics an opportunity to flood the American 
market with the one production which their activity during 
the Revolution had created in England, and English goods 
from 1783-87 were sold in America at prices less than 
their cost in Europe and for much less than they could be 
manufactured on this side. Some of the States imposed 
high duties upon fabrics manufactured by other States. 
This duty between the States, together with the low cost 
of English-made fabrics, was a serious detriment to American 
manufacturing, and numbers of persons in different parts 
of the United States undertook movements to promote 
American industries. 

Some knowledge of the new labor-saving machines reached 
America from England, but nothing very definite about 
them was known because of the precautions England 
had taken to prevent the knowledge spreading abroad. So 
stringent were these acts that it was not until after 1770 
that it was possible to secure from England designs and 
models of the new machinery, and then only with the utmost 
difficulty, owing to the prohibitory legislation. Some 
Hargreaves jennies and carding machines had been smuggled 
in, but none of Arkwright's machines, so that until Samuel 
Slater constructed these machines in 1790 at Pawtucket 
every attempt to make yarn by water power had failed. 

AMERICAN EFFORT TO SECURE ENGLISH MACHINES 

All kinds of expedients were tried by Americans to ob- 
tain either designs or copies of the English machines. Tench 
Coxe, a public-spirited Philadelphian, at his own expense 
had sent an English mechanic, who was living in Philadel- 
phia, to construct brass models of the Arkwright machines. 



142 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

The models were to be shipped to Paris, and through the 
agency of the American minister reshipped to America. 
The designs of the mechanic were discovered, the models 
were seized, and the mechanic himself was bonded not to 
leave England for three years. 

At another time, models were packed and shipped to 
France, to be repacked and reshipped by the American min- 
ister to France, but they were seized in transit. Again, 
when an English artisan had succeeded in smuggling him- 
self aboard a ship bound for America, the ship was stopped, 
searched, and the artisan seized and brought back to Eng- 
land and put under bonds not to leave. In some instances, 
machines were bought in England, taken apart, boxed 
separately, labelled agricultural implements, and reshipped 
to America. For instance, card clothing was mounted on 
handles and called "cards for cattle"; while the spindles 
were called "teeth for horse-rakes.'* In other instances the 
machines were cut up in small pieces, shipped as glassware 
to France, and reshipped to America. It was not long after 
1800 that the makers of textiles on this side of the water 
were almost as well equipped with English machines as 
were the English themselves. 

ENGLAND AND COTTON 

According to Bain's "History of Cotton," the importation 
of cotton in 1730, before the invention of the fly shuttle, 
was but 1,545,472 pounds, and the value of the cotton 
goods exported was 13,524 pounds; while in 1800, thirteen 
years after the invention of Cartwright's loom and Watt's 
steam-engine, the cotton imported was 56,010,732 pounds, 
and the exports were 5,406,501 pounds. The value of the 
product in 1787 was 3,304,371 pounds sterling, or five and 
one-half times that of 1766. 

Cotton was being used in 1787 in the one hundred and 
forty-three mills in England, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle 




IMPROVED JENNY 
{According to Guest) 

The wheel A turns the cylinder 5 by a band CC. The spindles are 
turned by strings from the cylinder B. The rovings are placed on the 
frame E and pass through the clove F to the spindles. The clove moves 
in the groove GG. When the clove is close to the spindles at H, it is opened 
and drawn from them eight or ten inches to /, the rovings sliding through 
it. It is then shut fast, and the spindles are set in motion by turning the 
wheel A. As the spindles revolve, the clove is drawn back from I to K 
by the left hand of the spinner: this stretches out the rovings into weft. 
When stretched out, the spinner holds the clove at K with the left hand, 
and gives the proper degree of twist by turning the wheel A with the right 
hand. The weft is then copped by turning the clove to H. L, the drop 
rod. The spindles in the first improved jennies were turned by strings 
from a drum on a perpendicular axis. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 143 

of Man as follows: calico and muslins, 11,600,000 pounds; 
fustians, 6,000,000 pounds; mixtures with silk and linen, 
2,000,000 pounds; hosiery, 1,500,000 pounds; candlewicks, 
1,500,000 pounds,— making a total of 22,600,000 pounds. 
162,000 hands were employed in the industry. 

Before Arkwright, printed calicoes were made of linen 
warp and cotton weft, because the cotton spun by hand 
was not strong enough to use for the warp. After Ark- 
wright had strengthened the warp, manufacturers could 
not be persuaded to use it, and when Mr. Jedediah Strutt, 
Mr. Arkwright's partner, successfully wove cotton warp 
into calico, he was under the law subjected to a double 
duty and had to petition Parliament before he secured 
relief. 

In 1780 there were twenty water-frame factories using 
Arkwright's patent in England. After 1785, when the 
court declared his patents void, the factories sprang up 
so rapidly that by 1790 there were one hundred and fifty in 
England and Wales. Before 1787 not only had the United 
States not exported any quantity of domestic cotton, but 
no planter had adopted its cultivation as a staple crop. 
Cotton was then secured from the East and West Indies 
and Brazil, for it was not until 1784 that England commenced 
to import cotton from the United States. 

STARTING OF COTTON CULTIVATION IN THE, SOUTH 

One of the first things to which Tench Coxe, who subse- 
quently became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under 
Alexander Hamilton, turned his enterprising mind, was to 
the problem of the production of cotton in the colonies. 
He was early convinced of its feasibility, despite that prior 
to 1736 cotton, save as a garden flower, was uncultivated 
in the South. It was in 1736 being raised as a garden 
flower as far north as Talbot County, Maryland, and else- 
where on the eastern shore of Maryland, the lower coun- 



144 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

ties of Delaware, and other places in the Middle States, 
but its useful qualities soon were recognized, and its reg- 
ular cultivation for fabrics was begun in those sections. 
Coxe, having learned of the labor-saving machines in Great 
Britain and having secured more or less accurate knowledge 
of great importance to the cotton industry, turned his mind 
to increasing the production of cotton by its cultivation in 
the South, that "the Cotton Spinning Mill might be brought 
into very beneficial use in the United States.'* He took 
effective measures to interest the whole community, par- 
ticularly the planters of the five original Southern States. 

But Coxe found it a slow task to interest the planters 
of these five States. At the convention held in 1786 at 
Annapolis to consider what means could be used to improve 
the industrial condition of the country, James Madison, 
later President, who was a member of the convention, said 
in a conversation with Coxe, "There was no reason to doubt 
that the United States would one day become a great 
cotton-producing country." 

And in the same year Thomas Jefferson wrote to M. de 
Warville, under date of August 15: "The four southernmost 
states make a great deal of cotton. Their poor are almost 
entirely clothed in it winter and summer. In winter they 
wear shirts of it, and outer clothing of cotton and wool 
mixed. In summer their shirts are linen, but the outer 
clothing cotton. The dress of the women is almost entirely 
of cotton manufactured by themselves, except the richer 
class, and even many of these wear a good deal of homespun 
cotton. It is as well manufactured as the calicoes of Europe. 
Those four states furnish a great deal of cotton to the states 
north of them, who cannot make, as being too cold." 

The best evidence proves that the first culture of cotton 
in the South was made on the peninsula between the Dela- 
ware and Chesapeake Bays, and that the growth of cotton 
spread across to Western Maryland and Virginia, and so 
on extended until it had become the great Southern crop. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 145 

ORIGIN OF SEA ISLAND COTTON AND BEGINNING OP ITS 
CULTIVATION IN THE SOUTH 

The story of Sea Island cotton is much more precise. 
In 1785 Patrick Walsh, of Kingston, Jamaica, persuaded 
his friend, Frank Levett, who with his family and negroes 
was in a distressed condition, to settle on Sapelo, one of 
the islands off the coast of Georgia, and plant provisions. 
Walsh sent him in 1786 a large quantity of various seeds 
of Jamaica, and also three large sacks of the Pernambuco 
cotton seed. Levett wrote Walsh in 1789: — 

"Being in want of the sacks for gathering in my pro- 
visions I shook their contents on the dung hill, and it 
happening to be a very wet season in the Spring, multitudes 
of plants covered the place. Those I drew out and trans- 
planted them into two acres of ground and was highly 
gratified to find an abundant crop. This encouraged me 
to plant more. I used all my strength in clearing and 
planting, and have succeeded beyond my most sanguine 
expectations." Thus it was that Sea Island cotton origi- 
nated, the most valuable of all cotton staples. 

About the same time that Levett planted his cotton, 
James Spaulding, Colonel Robert Kelsal, and Governor 
Tatnall, all of Georgia, received parcels of the seed from 
friends who were exiled Royalists and who were living in 
the Bahamas, and planted them with excellent results. 
Levett's cotton was sent to London, and sold to Glasgow 
manufacturers for four shillings, sixpence, per pound. The 
purchasers said that they had never seen cotton so good and 
promised to take all that would be procured. The London 
agents, Simpson and Davidson, were told to inform their 
friends that the market could not be overstocked, so 
superior was the long-stapled, silky Sea Island cotton 
to that which England was getting from the East and 
West Indies. 

Twenty persons in 1789 were growing Sea Island cotton 



146 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

in Georgia, but it was not extensively raised in South 
Carolina until 1799. 

The influence of Tench Coxe induced Congress in 1789 
to protect the Southern growers by placing a duty of three 
cents a pound on foreign cotton. At this time the produc- 
tion of cotton, according to an estimate of the Treasury 
Department, was about one million pounds. In 1790 it 
was a million and a half, and in 1791 two million pounds, 
three-fourths of which came from South Carolina and the 
rest from Georgia. 

The invention of Whitney's gin enormously increased, 
as we have seen, the production of cotton by making it 
easy to separate the fibre from the seed, and cotton soon 
became the great staple crop of the South. 

According to a letter written by Richard Teake, of Sa- 
vannah, Ga., to Thomas Proctor, of Philadelphia, dated 
Dec. 11, 1788, the year 1788 marked the introduction 
of cotton growing on a large scale in the Carolinas and 
Georgia: — 

"I have been this year an adventurer and the first 
that has attempted on a large scale in the articles of cotton. 
Several here, as well as in Carolina, have followed me and 
tried the experiment. I will raise about 5,000 pounds in 
the seed from about eight acres of land and next year I 
expect to plant fifty to one hundred acres. The lands 
in the southern part of this state are admirably adapted 
to the raising of this commodity. The climate is so mild 
so far to the South, scarce any winter is felt and another 
advantage — whites can be employed. The labor is not se- 
vere attending it; not more than raising Indian corn." 

Cotton was undoubtedly shipped from the colonies to 
England in 1747, 1753, 1757, 1764, and 1770. In fact, a 
reproduction of a bill of lading for eighteen bales of cotton 
shipped July 20, 1751, from New York to London on the 
vessel of Captain Barnaby Badgers, is reproduced in Chew's 
"History of the Kingdom of Cotton and Cotton Statistics 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 147 

of the World." It has been claimed that this was a reship- 
ment of cotton grown in the West Indies. Whether or 
not this is true, the fact remains that some of the cotton 
grown either for floral purposes or home industry in the 
colonies did find its way to Europe. Another authority 
says that Samuel Auspourgouer, a Swiss living in Georgia, 
took to London in 1739, at the time of the controversy over 
the introduction of slaves, a sample of the cotton raised 
by him in Georgia. 

Jefferson mentions cotton as an article of export from 
Virginia previous to the Revolution. The real beginning 
of the cotton trade between the United States and Great 
Britain was in 1784, when Mr. Rathbone, an American 
merchant in Liverpool, received a consignment of eight 
bales of cotton, which were seized by the custom-house on 
the ground that they could not have been raised in the 
United States and were liable to seizure under the Shipping 
Act "as not being imported in vessels belonging to the 
country of growth." When its place of growth was proven 
to be the United States, so undesirable was the quality of 
the cotton that it lay in the warehouse some months after 
its release by the government before it could be sold. In 
1785 fourteen bags were sent over, in 1786 six bags, and in 
1787 one hundred and nine bags, of about one hundred and 
fifty pounds each, reached Liverpool. 

In 1788 58,350 pounds were exported, and Sea Island 
cotton formed the bulk of the exports until 1793, and from 
this time on the exports of cotton rapidly increased, and 
cotton cultivation spread over the South until cotton had 
become the great staple crop, supplying the European in- 
dustry as well as the American. 



CHAPTER VI 

AMERICAN INDUSTEY AFTER THE REVOLUTION AND 
BEFORE SLATER 

FIRST MANUFACTURING IN PENNSYLVANIA FIRST COTTON MILL IN 

NEW ENGLAND — FIRST TEXTILE TRADE -MARK — FIRST TEXTILE 

ADVERTISING BOSTON SAIL CLOTH FACTORY — COMMENCEMENT 

OF THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN RHODE ISLAND FIRST WOOLEN 

MILL — WASHINGTON INAUGURATED IN SUIT OF DOMESTIC WOOLEN 
FIRST WOOLEN MILL OPERATED WITH POWER MACHINERY 

The most influential of the early movements to promote 
textile manufacturing originated in Philadelphia, where 
cotton manufacturing with power machinery began in 
1764, and according to the Complete Magazine, published 
in London that year, "Some beautiful samples of the cotton 
manufactures now carried on in Philadelphia have been 
lately imported and greatly admired." Through the ef- 
forts of Tench Coxe, Samuel Wetherill, Jr., and others, a 
society called "The Pennsylvania Society for the Encour- 
agement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts," which was 
an outgrowth of the United Company of Philadelphia, 
was organized on the 9th of August, 1787, at a meeting 
held at the University of Pennsylvania. The necessity of 
promoting and establishing manufactures was pointed out 
in an address by Tench Coxe. Every member on admis- 
sion paid to the treasurer the sum of ten shillings and the 
same sum annually for the purpose of defraying the neces- 
sary expenses of the society, and a subscription of not less 
than ten pounds was opened, and called the "manufactur- 
ing fund," for the purpose of establishing factories in such 
places as might be thought suitable. 

The society on Aug. 23, 1788, had received thirteen 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 149 

hundred and twenty-seven pounds, ten shillings, and six- 
pence, had spent four hundred and fifty-three pounds, ten 
shillings, and twopence for machines, utensils, and equip- 
ping the house of the old United Company of Philadel- 
phia for the manufactory, and had a capital left of eight 
hundred and seventy-four pounds, no shillings, and four- 
pence. As one of the objects of the society was the em- 
ployment of the poor, a quantity of flax was bought, and 
between two and three hundred women were employed 
during the winter and spring in spinning linen yarn. Work- 
men were engaged to make a carding machine and four 
jennies of forty, forty-four, sixty, and eighty spindles for 
spinning cotton. As soon as possible the house was fitted 
up and the machines set to work. Various obstacles, 
such as finding proper workmen, making machines from 
imperfect models, various obstructions thrown in the way 
by agents of foreign manufacturers, combined to delay the 
work, so that it was the 12th of April, 1788, before the 
first loom was set to work. This was twelve days before 
the Beverly Cotton Manufactory turned out goods from 
its new mill, and, if the Beverly proprietors did not make 
any goods until moving into the Beverly mill, to Phila- 
delphia belongs the distinction of establishing in America 
the first cotton mill with power machinery. 

If when the Hon. George Cabot wrote to Alexander 
Hamilton that the Beverly gentlemen were engaged in the 
cotton manufacturing in October, 1787, he meant that they 
were then turning out cotton fabrics by machinery, the 
honor of being the first to engage in cotton manufacturing 
with machinery belongs not to Philadelphia, but to Mas- 
sachusetts. If he simply referred to the fact that these 
men were engaged in promoting a cotton manufactory, 
then any distinction which springs from the establishment 
of the first cotton mill in America belongs without question 
to Pennsylvania. 

The number of looms in Philadelphia was speedily in- 



150 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

creased to twenty-six, and the following goods had been 
made up to Aug. 23, 1788: jeans, 2,9593^ yards; corduroy, 
1973^ yards; federal rib, 67 yards; beaver fustian, 57 
yards; plain cotton, 1,5673^ yards; linen, 725 yards; tow 
linen, 1,3373^ yards; total, 7,111 yards. In the looms at 
that time there were 200 yards of jeans, corduroys, cottons, 
and linens. The manufactory had sold manufactured goods, 
of jean, and cotton, and linen yarn, fine and tow linen, to 
the value of four hundred and forty-eight pounds, five shill- 
ings, eleven pence, one-half penny. By the first of No- 
vember the manufactory had made in addition: jeans, 7593^ 
yards; corduroy, 3833/^ yards; flowered cotton, 39 yards; 
cottons, 2,095 yards; flax linen, 123 yards; tow linen, 494 
yards; bird's-eye, 123 yards, — making a total of 4,016 yards. 
The cotton yarn sold in Philadelphia for one dollar a pound. 
There were also about two hundred and forty yards of 
different goods in the looms, amounting in all to 11,367 
yards, and 185 pounds of plain and colored knitting thread 
had been made by the twisting mill. 190 yards of cotton 
had been printed, showing that by November, 1788, the 
output was considerable. None of these early efforts 
amounted to much because of the better goods turned out 
by the more perfect machines of English manufacturers. 
Then, too, from 1782 to 1789 the poverty and business de- 
pression in the United States were wide-spread, and proved 
a serious obstacle to the successful starting of new enter- 
prises. The manufactory was finally burned March 24, 
1790, and the mill in which horse-power ran some of the 
machines was not rebuilt. 



FIRST COTTON MILL IN NEW ENGLAND 

The first cotton mill in New England, if not in America, 
was that established by the proprietors of the Beverly 
Cotton Manufactory at Beverly, Mass. The production 
of cotton goods at their mill preceded by at least a year 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 151 

the first products of Samuel Slater's mill at Pawtucket, 
but seems to have been a little later than the establish- 
ment of cotton manufacturing by the Pennsylvania Society 
for Promoting Manufactures and Useful Arts in Philadel- 
phia. Unsuccessful attempts at spinning and weaving cot- 
ton had been made in 1780 at Worcester. 

The interest in cotton manufacturing had been greatly 
stimulated by the action of the legislature of Massachusetts 
in 1786, and therefore before the thirteen States had become 
the United States of America. This legislature had on 
the 25th of October, 1786, appointed a committee of three — 
Mr. Richard Cranch of the Senate and Mr. Clarke and 
Mr. Bowdoin of the House — "to view any new invented 
machines that are making within this Commonwealth for 
the purpose of manufacturing sheep's and cotton wool, 
and report what measures are proper for the Legislature to 
take to encourage the same." 

The committee examined at the works of Colonel Hugh 
Orr, the machines for carding and spinning that had been 
made at Bridgewater, by Robert and Alexander Barr, and 
at the suggestion of the committee the legislature granted 
the Barrs two hundred pounds to enable them to com- 
plete three machines, a roving machine, and to construct 
several other machines as might be necessary for carding, 
roping, and spinning cotton and wool. 

Colonel Orr was a Scotchman who had settled in Bridge- 
water in 1740 and had been engaged in the manufacture 
of firearms. At the commencement of the Revolution he 
had made the first cannon produced in the country by 
boring a solid casting. Having become interested in the 
carding and spinning machines which he learned were being 
made in England, he had successfully urged Robert and 
Alexander Barr, two brothers, who were skilful Scotch 
mechanics, to come to America and construct textile ma- 
chinery at Orr's works. 

The Massachusetts legislature continued to watch with 



152 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

much interest the progress of the Barrs, and on March 8, 
1787, Richard Cranch was appointed by the Senate "with 
such as the House should join to examine the machines 
which are now nearly completed and to inspect and allow 
the account of Robert and Alexander Barr and also to 
report to the next General Court, what gratuity in their 
opinion the said Robert and Alexander justly deserve, as 
a reward for their ingenuity in forming these machines, and 
as an encouragement for their public spirit in making them 
known to this Commonwealth." The committee passed 
their account for one hundred and eighty-nine pounds and 
twelve shillings, which included the expense of transport- 
ing the machines to and from Boston, that the legislature 
could see them. 

Thomas Somers, a Scotchman who had been a midship- 
man in the English navy, petitioned the legislature of 
Massachusetts, Feb. 15, 1787, on the subject of textile 
machinery, and represented that in the fall of 1785, while 
he was residing in Baltimore, tradesmen and manufact- 
urers of that city had been influenced by a circular letter 
sent by a committee of the tradesmen and manufacturers of 
Boston to form themselves into an association for applying 
to the legislature in behalf of American manufacture. 
Somers said he had been brought up in cotton manufact- 
uring, and, being willing to do what lay in his power to in- 
troduce the manufacture in America, at his own risk and 
expense had gone to England to prepare machines for card- 
ing and spinning cotton. He found after much difficulty 
that he could only secure descriptions and models of the 
textile machines. With these he had returned to Balti- 
more. Finding that the merchants of Baltimore were very 
dilatory about encouraging the matter, he resolved to take 
the advice of friends and try his success in Boston. 

To encourage the textile manufacture and to give Somers 
an opportunity to prove his ability to perfect the manu- 
facture, the legislature, March 8, 1787, granted him twenty 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 153 

pounds, which were deposited with Colonel Orr, who was 
made a committee to supervise the expenditure. Somers, 
under the direction of Orr, constructed other textile ma- 
chinery in addition to that already made by the Barrs, and 
about the same time Mr. Orr employed a Scotchman by 
the name of McClure to weave jeans and corduroy by hand 
with the fly shuttle. This was probably the first use in 
America of the fly shuttle. 

The legislature on May 2, 1787, discharged the Barrs 
from any obligations under the grant of two hundred pounds, 
and granted them six tickets in the land lottery which had 
no blanks. It was further provided that the niachines 
they and Somers had made should be left in charge of 
Colonel Orr, with the proviso that he should "explain to 
such citizens as may apply for the same the principles on 
which said machines are constructed and the advantages 
arising from their use, and also to allow them to see the 
machines at work." These machines were subsequently 
known as "The State Models," and the ones made in 1786 
by the Barrs were the first jennies and stock cards made in 
the United States. They served as the models from which 
many who were interested in the construction of textile 
mills got their ideas for the machinery which was first 
used. But these models were very imperfect and of little 
use. 

The legislature had also provided that public notice 
of the machines be given by advertising three weeks con- 
secutively in Adams and Nourse's newspaper that the 
models could be seen and examined at Colonel Orr's in 
Bridgewater. They also included crude reproductions of 
Arkwright's roller spinning and other textile improve- 
ments, but they all had vital defects which made them im- 
practical, so that Samuel Slater constructed the first practical 
Arkwright machines in America. 

These Bridgewater experiments centred attention on 
the possibilities of the textile industry, and undoubtedly 



154 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

influenced the proprietors of the Beverly factory to take up 
cotton spinning. The cotton used in these Bridgewater 
experiments, as well as that used later at the Beverly factory, 
came from Barbadoes, Surinam, Pernambuco, Cayenne, and 
other places in the West Indies and South America, and 
was imported in exchange for fish which New England ex- 
ported. The cotton was often mixed with linen or sheep's 
wool, and was originally sold in the shops by the pound for 
domestic use. 

One of the prime movers in the organization of the Bev- 
erly cotton manufacture was the Hon. George Cabot, 
who wrote to Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of 
the Treasury, and to Benjamin Goodhue, Massachusetts' 
first member of Congress, that the Beverly manufacturers 
were engaged in the cotton industry as early as October, 
1787. The Salem Mercury on April 22, 1788, stated that 
"several public-spirited gentlemen in Beverly have procured 
a complete set of machines for carding and spinning cot- 
ton, with which an experiment was made a few days ago, 
answering the warmest wishes of the proprietors. The 
jenny spun sixty threads at a time, and with carding ma- 
chine forty pounds of cotton can be well carded in a day, — 
the warping machines, and the other tools and machin- 
ery, part of which go by water, are all complete, — ^perform 
their various operations to great advantage, and promise 
much benefit to the public and emolument to the patriotic 
adventurers.'* 

A few weeks later the same newspaper said that a "Mr. 
Leonard and Mr. Somers," who understood the making 
and finishing of velvets, corduroys, jeans, fustians, denims, 
marseilles quiltings, dimity, muslins, etc., had introduced 
into Beverly the machines for carding and spinning. They 
had the patronage of the Hon. George Cabot, who had 
secured the influence of a number of gentlemen in Beverly 
to organize for the purpose of establishing the industries. 







ARKWRIGHT'S ORIGINAL WATER FRAME WITH THE SPECIFICATIONS 
ON THE ORIGINAL PATENT PAPERS TAKEN OUT BY HIM ON JULY 

15, 1769. 

"Now know ye that I, the said Richard Arkwright, do hereby describe 
and ascertain the nature of my said invention, and declare that the plan 
thereof drawn in the margin of these presents is composed of the following 
particulars, (that is to say) A, the Cogg Wheel and Shaft, which receive 
their motion from a horse. B, the Drum or Wheel which turns C, a belt of 
leather, and gives motion to the whole machine. D, a lead weight, which 
keeps F, the small drum, steady to E, the forcing Wheel. G, the shaft 
of wood which gives motion to the Wheel H, and continues it to /, four 
pair of Rollers, (the form of which are drawn in the margin,) which act by 
tooth and pinion made of brass and steel nuts fixt in two iron plates K. 
That part of the roller which the cotton runs through is covered with wood, 
the top Roller with leather, and the bottom one fluted, which lets the 
Cotton, &c. through it; by one pair of Rollers moving quicker than the 
other, draws it finer for twisting, which is performed by the spindles T. 
K, the two iron plates described above. L, four large Bobbins with cotton 
rovings on, conducted between Rollers at the back. M, the four threads 
carried to the Bobbins and Spindles by four small wires fixt across the 
frame in the slip of wood V. N, iron leavers with small lead weights hang- 
ing to the Rollers by Pulleys, which keep the Rollers close to each other. 0, 
a cross piece of wood to which the leavers are fixed. P, the Bobbins and 
Spindles. Q, Flyers made of wood, with small wires on the side, which 
lead the thread to the bobbins. R, small worsted bands put about the whirl 
of the bobbins, the screwing of which tight or easy causes the bobbins to 
wind up the thread faster or slower. S, the four whirls of the spindles. 
T, the four Spindles, which run in iron plates. V, explained in letter M. 
W, a wooden frame of the whole machine." 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 155 

FIRST TEXTILE TRADE-MARK 

These men, who on June 6, 1788, petitioned the legis- 
lature for incorporation, which was granted on Feb. 3, 
1789, were John Cabot, George Cabot, Deborah and An- 
drew Cabot, Moses Brown, Joshua Fisher, Israel Thorn- 
dike, James Leonard, Thomas Somers and Isaac Chapman, 
of Beverly, and Henry Higginson, of Boston. They were 
given permission to hold real estate to the amount of ten 
thousand pounds and personal estate to the amount of 
eighty thousand pounds for the purpose of manufacturing 
textiles; "and be it further enacted by the state aforesaid," 
read the charter, "that all goods which may be manu- 
factured by the said corporation, shall have a label of lead 
affixed to one end thereof, which shall have the same im- 
pression with the seal of the said corporation, and that if 
any person shall knowingly use a like seal or label with 
that used by said corporation, by annexing same to any 
cotton or cotton and linen goods, not manufactured by said 
corporation with a view of vending or distributing thereof, 
as the proper manufacture of the said corporation, every 
person so offending shall forfeit and pay treble the value 
of such goods, to be sued for and recovered for the use of 
said corporation, by action of debt, in any court of record 
proper to try the same." 

This shows conclusively the first cotton mill in New 
England was wise enough to trade-mark its goods, and it 
also advertised them for sale in Salem and Beverly under 
the trade-mark. 

The five or six acres on which the factory stood adjoined 
the Beverly Tavern on "the road from Mr. Oliver's meet- 
ing-house to Beverly Ferry," and was purchased Aug. 18, 
1788, for eighty pounds and five shillings, by John Cabot, 
merchant, and Joshua Fisher, physician. Work was at 
once commenced on the mill, and before Jan. 6, 1789, 
it was completed. The Salem Mercury speaks of the 



156 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

"promising cotton manufactory at Beverly," and it is 
described as *'a plain three story building of brick, meas- 
uring about sixty by twenty-five feet with a pitching 
shingled roof, and a deep basement, in one end of which 
moved a heavy pair of horses to furnish rotary power." 
The horses were driven by a boy, Joshua Herrick, of Maine, 
who afterwards became a member of Congress. When the 
horses went too fast, Mr. Somers would call out the win- 
dow, "Hold on there! not so fast! Slower!" and Herrick 
would slow up, but soon he would forget and speed up 
again, when again Somers would cry out, "Hold up!" 
and this continued most of the day. In a corner of the lot 
stood a small wooden dye-house. The mill stood about 
seventy feet behind the tavern yard. 

In a letter written to Alexander Hamilton by George 
Cabot, Sept. 6, 1791, the number of employees is given as 
forty, thirty-nine of whom were native. The machines 
were enumerated as follows: "one carding machine with 
the labor of one man carded fifteen pounds per day, and 
with the labor of two men was capable of carding thirty 
pounds per day; nine spinning jennies, of sixty to eighty- 
four spindles each; one doubling and twisting machine, 
constructed on the principle of the jenny; one stubbing 
machine, or coarse jenny, to prepare the ropings for the 
finest jennies, whereon they are fitted for doubling and 
twisting; one warping mill, sufl&cient to perform this part 
of the work for a very extensive manufactory; sixteen looms 
with flying shuttle, ten of which are sufficient to weave all 
the yarn our present spinners can finish; two cutting frames, 
with knives, guides, etc.; one burner and furnace, with 
apparatus to singe the goods; apparatus for coloring, dry- 
ing, etc." 

According also to Mr. Cabot, actual expenditures on the 
enterprise had been about $14,000; of which the build- 
ing had cost $3,000, machinery and apparatus $2,000, 
goods and unwrought material $4,000, sunk in waste of 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 157 

materials, extraordinary cost of first machines, in main- 
taining learners and compensating teachers, etc., $5,000. 
He wrote that the net loss to the manufacturers had been 
about $10,000 and the interest on their money, and that the 
legislature of Massachusetts had granted aids in lands and 
lottery tickets to about $4,000. The mill was then turning 
out 8,000 to 10,000 yards per year. 

The incorporators found from the outset of their enter- 
prise the construction of the proper machinery not only 
difficult, but expensive, and they applied to the legislature 
for aid, and on Feb. 17, 1789, were granted five hun- 
dred pounds, to be paid from the proceeds of eastern lands 
of the Commonwealth, with the condition that the petition- 
ers should manufacture, within seven years from the date 
of the grant, cotton and cotton and linen goods of a quality 
usually imported to the amount of fifty thousand yards. 
As the grantees found the eastern lands not available for 
raising the money they required, in June they again peti- 
tioned the legislature, representing they had expended 
about four thousand pounds, and that the present value 
of this stock was not equal to two thousand pounds, and 
that, owing to the cost of machines (a cardiag machine is 
cited as costing eleven hundred pounds) and the difficulty 
and expense of carrying on the business, they must have 
some "very considerable advancement." 

The House granted them thirteen hundred pounds to be 
obtained from a lottery, but the Senate refused the grant, 
and allowed seven hundred pounds on March 4, 1791, to 
be raised by lottery. 

Washington made a tour of New England in 1789, and 
on October 30 took breakfast with George Cabot, and 
afterward visited the cotton mill on his way to Portsmouth. 
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, in his "Some Early Mem- 
ories,'* says that his grandfather, Henry Cabot, the son of 
George Cabot, used to tell how he hid under the sideboard 
and watched the "Father of his Country" at breakfast 



158 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

with his father, when Washington stopped at Senator Lodge's 
great-grandfather's house on this occasion. According to 
the Salem Mercury of Nov. 3, 1789, Washington "was 
shown in the lower story a jenny of eighty-four spindles, 
upon which some of the manufacturers were spinning warp; 
and three or four other jennies upon which they were spin- 
ning weft, and about a dozen looms upon v/hich they were 
weaving cotton denim, thicksett, corduroys, velveret, etc. 
In the middle story was seen a roping jenny of forty-two 
spindles and a machine on which a person usually doubles 
and twists in a day a cotton warp of fifty yards. In the 
upper story were exhibited the business of carding, working, 
and cutting; and in a contiguous building that of dressing 
on the stove.'* The goods there made were mostly a coarse 
fabric, and amounted to about ten thousand yards. 

Washington, under date of Friday, October 30, wrote in 
his diary: "After passing Beverly two miles we came to a 
cotton manufactory, which seems to be carried on with spirit 
by the Cabots principally. In this manufactory they have 
the new invented carding and spinning machines; one of 
the first supplies the work, and four of the latter; one of 
which spins eighty-four threads at one time by one person. 
The cotton is prepared for this machine by being first lightly 
drawn to a thread on the common wheel. 

"There is another machine for doubling and twisting 
the thread for particular cloths. This also does many at 
a time. For winding the cotton from the spindles and 
preparing it for the warp there is a reel which expedites 
the work greatly. A number of looms, fifteen or sixteen, 
were at work with spring-shuttles, which do more than 
double work. In short, the whole seemed perfect, and the 
cotton stuffs which they turn out excellent of their kind, 
warp and filling both are now of cotton." 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 159 

FIRST TEXTILE ADVERTISING 

The Beverly goods were advertised for sale from Decem- 
ber, 1789. Baker & Allen, of Beverly, were selling the 
corduroys as the equal in price and quality with imported 
fabrics, and Francis Cabot at Salem also sold corduroys, 
royal ribs, thicksett, stockinette, and rib delures, whole- 
sale and retail, and all made in Beverly and at lower prices 
than English goods of the same quality. In fact, by 1790 
the wear of Beverly corduroys is said to have been common. 
Despite every eiffort, it was impossible to make the early 
mills pay, and we soon find Moses Brown, the patron of 
Slater, writing to Moses Brown, of Beverly, his namesake, 
asking the co-operation of the Beverly proprietors in peti- 
tioning Congress for an additional duty on cotton goods. 
It was also with difficulty that the employees of the 
Beverly mill could be kept, because as fast as they mas- 
tered the business they were enticed away by other manu- 
facturers. 

In fact, the Beverly enterprise met with more difficulties 
than usually confront a new industry, and finally, shortly 
before the Embargo Act of 1807, which paralyzed the 
industry, passed out of existence. A deed of land in 1813 
describes it as follows: "A certain piece of land with brick 
buildings now thereon standing, with all the machinery 
and utensils formerly used for the manufacture of cotton 
which remain unsold," and until this date the machines 
and land were unsold. The old brick factory was finally 
burned in 1828. 



BOSTON SAIL CLOTH FACTORY 

As the result of a bounty offered by the Massachusetts 
legislature in 1788 for home -manufactured sail cloth, etc., 
a number of Boston merchants formed a company called 
the Boston Sail Cloth Factory. Land which was probably 



160 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

an open pasture was rented for nine pounds a year at the 
corner of Frog Lane, now Boylston Street, and Holyoke, 
now Tremont Street, and by 1789 sixteen women and as 
many girls were working twenty -eight looms and were 
turning out forty yards per week. 

Washington, who described it on his New England visit 
in 1789, wrote, "They have twenty-eight looms and four- 
teen girls, spinning with both hands, the flax being fastened 
to the waist. Children, (girls) turn the wheels for them; 
and with this assistance each spinner can turn out fourteen 
pounds of thread a day when they stick to it; but as they 
are paid by the piece or the work they do, there is no other 
restraint upon them but to come at eight o'clock in the 
morning and return at six in the evening. They are the 
daughters of decayed families; none others are admitted.'* 

In 1792 about four hundred employees were turning 
out about fifty pieces of linen duck a week. As described 
in 1789 in the Gazette of the United States, "The manu- 
facturing house for duck in Boston is pleasantly situated 
in the south west part of the town. The building is 180 
feet long, two stories high. The upper part is improved by 
the spinners of chains or warp of the duck. Sixteen young 
women and as many girls under the direction of a steady 
matron are here employed. In the lower part there are 
twenty-eight looms which can turn out two pieces of duck 
of forty yards each per week." 

A high degree of perfection was attained, and the business 
was very prosperous until about 1795, when the bounty 
was withdrawn and the business gradually died. In the 
mean time, however, duck had begun to be manufactured 
in Haverhill, Springfield, and in New Hampshire and Con- 
necticut. 

About the same time various other attempts at duck 
manufacturing were made elsewhere, one of them being 
in Worcester, where a factory was erected in 1789, and on 
April 30, 1789, the first piece of corduroy was turned out. 






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THE STORY OF TEXTILES 161 

Fustians, ribs, and corduroys were subsequently offered 
for sale. The enterprise, however, was not a success, and 
within a few years after it started passed out of existence. 
Other attempts were made at Colchester, Conn., at Exeter, 
N.H., at Haverhill, Mass., and also at Springfield, Salem, and 
Stratford. 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN RHODE ISLAND 

Cotton manufacturing began in Rhode Island in 1788, 
and was due to the efforts of Daniel Anthony, Andrew 
Dexter, and Lewis Peck, of Providence, who formed a 
partnership to manufacture "Home Spun Cloth." It 
was the original purpose to spin by hand and make linen 
jeans with linen warp and cotton filling, but, learning of 
the Bridgewater experiments, Anthony and John Reynolds, 
of East Greenwich, who had begun the making of woolens, 
visited Bridgewater and made a sketch of the machine. 
Nothing was done with this sketch, for soon after they 
proceeded to build a jenny from a model of the machine 
that Somers had at Beverly. The construction of the 
woodwork was done by Richard Anthony, while the spindles 
and brasswork were made by Daniel Jackson, a coppersmith, 
of Providence. The jenny was set up in a private house, 
but was subsequently removed to a chamber in the market 
house. Providence. 

A machine for carding cotton spun upon the lines of the 
sketch of a similar machine seen at Beverly was made by 
Joshua Lindly, of Providence, and a spinning machine, 
somewhat like the Arkwright frame, but very imperfect, 
was also built. It had eight heads of four spindles each, 
and was worked by a crank turned by hand. John Bailey, 
an ingenious clock maker, of Pembroke, Mass., made the 
first head, while the other seven, together with the brass- 
work and spindles, were the work of Daniel Jackson, the 
woodwork being by Joshua Lindly. In 1787 Joseph Alex- 



162 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

ander and James McKerris, expert fly -shuttle weavers, 
had arrived in Providence, and were engaged to make 
corduroy. Alexander went to work in Providence, while 
McKerris took up the work in East Greenwich. The 
first fly shuttle in Rhode Island was built according to 
the directions of Alexander, and was operated in the market- 
house chamber. A piece of corduroy was woven, of a linen 
warp and filling of cotton, but, as there was no one who 
knew how to cut the corduroy or to finish it so as to raise 
the pile, the manufacture was abandoned, and Alexander 
went to Philadelphia. McKerris worked in East Green- 
wich for some years. 

The spinning frame which had been made from the 
State model, after being tried in Providence, was taken to 
Pawtucket and attached to a wheel propelled by water, but 
the machine was so imperfect that it was set too hard to 
work by hand. Eventually, the machine was sold to Moses 
Brown, of Providence, who had become much interested 
in the textile industry. Brown, together with Smith Brown, 
a kinsman, also purchased the stocking loom of John Fullem, 
an Irishman, who had some time in 1788 commenced 
stocking weaving in East Greenwich, but, not prospering, 
went to Providence. 

After selling his loom, Fullem operated it under the 
superintendence of Smith Brown, but the business, not prov- 
ing successful, was given up. In the mean time, calico 
printing had been introduced by Herman Vandausen, a 
German calico printer, who settled in East Greenwich. 
He cut his design on wood, and printed for those who home- 
spun calico. This calico was little inferior to that im- 
ported from India, but Mr. Moses Brown, who was then 
trading with India and to whom the domestic cloth was 
shown, decided it was cheaper to import the Indian fabrics. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 163 

FIRST WOOLEN MILL 

The first woolen factory in which water power was used, 
other than in the fulling process in which water power 
was early employed, and in fact the first large woolen mill 
in America, was that of the Hartford Woolen Manufactory, 
which was organized April 15, 1788, and started at Hart- 
ford, Conn., by a number of shareholders, of whom Jere- 
miah Wadsworth was the largest. Other stockholders were 
Oliver Wolcott, signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
and Peter Colt, uncle of the man who originated Colt's 
revolver. On the books of the company appears under 
date of Dec. 27, 1788, a charge for one piece of smoke cloth, 
23^ yards, and also for one piece of Hartford gray, showing 
that about then manufacturing began. 

In order to encourage the industry, the Connecticut 
General Assembly passed a resolution exempting the build- 
ings and employees from taxation, and offered a bounty of 
one cent per pound upon all woolen yarns woven into cloth 
before a certain date, and considerable perfection was soon 
attained in the production of the best cloths. 

WASHINGTON INAUGURATED IN SUIT OF DOMESTIC WOOLEN 

At the inauguration of Washington, April 3, 1789, the 
President, Vice-President, and the Connecticut senators 
were all clothed in fabrics made by this mill. Washington 
appeared dressed in a coat, waistcoat, breeches of fine dark 
brown cloth, and white silk stockings. Plain silver buckles 
were on his shoes, his head uncovered, and his hair dressed 
after the prevailing fashion of the time. In a letter to 
General Henry Knox, who sent him the suit, Washington 
wrote as follows: — 

Mt. Vernon, March 2, 1789. 
My dear Sir, — I beg of you to accept my acknowledgment of 
and thanks for your obliging favors of the 12th, 16th, and 19th 



164 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

of last month, and particularly for the trouble you have had in 
procuring and forwarding for use, a suit of the Hartford Manu- 
facture. It is come safe and exceeds my expectation. I will 
take an early opportimity of paying the cost of it. I am ever 
yours, George Washington. 

"The cloth is of as fine a fabric," said one of the news- 
papers, describing the President's suit, "and so handsomely 
finished, that it is universally mistaken for a foreign manu- 
factured superfine cloth." 

The proprietors of this mill, like the proprietors of the 
Beverly manufactory, believed in calling the public's at- 
tention to their goods by advertising, and therefore they 
inserted in the Connecticut Courant, Sept. 14, 1789, and 
also in 1790, this advertisement: — 

"American manufactured woolens for sale at the Hart- 
ford Woolen Manufactory. A great variety of cloths, 
sergings and coatings. The colors may be relied upon, 
being principally dyed in grain. They have lately estab- 
lished a blue dye where all the different shades from a 
pearl color to navy blue are dyed." On Nov. 2, 1789, an 
advertisement read, "A great variety of fine, middling 
and coarse, broad and narrow cloths, serges, coatings, and 
baises, etc., by wholesale." 

In the year from September, 1788, to September, 1789, 
about five thousand yards of cloth were made, the spinning 
only being done outside by the country people. Broad- 
cloths of a good, but not first quality were produced, some 
of which sold as high as five dollars per yard. Their Hart- 
ford gray became a celebrated cloth. About 1789 one cloth 
presser finished in seven months, at one press, 8,133 yards, 
of which 5,282 yards were fulled coatings. Cassimeres, 
serges, and everlastings were also turned out. Early in 
colonial days and even after the starting of the Hartford 
Mill, worsteds that were woven into serges and everlastings 
were spun in the households. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 165 

It was difficult for the manufactory to get ahead, so it 
secured in 1790 from the General Assembly a grant of a 
lottery to further its interests, the proceeds being used for 
machinery, implements, and increase of stock. The Con- 
necticut Couranty Oct. 3, 1791, could report that the manu- 
facture after struggling with every obstacle began to flourish. 
"The quality of the cloths, more especially the coarser, is 
acknowledged on all hands to be superior to English of the 
same fineness. It is an undeniable fact that the coatings 
made here are more durable than the English. The great 
objection formerly made to the coloring and finishing of 
the cloths is now removed, it being agreed by the best 
judges that the difference between the best finish English 
cloths and those of this manufacture is hardly perceivable." 
The first and only dividend passed by the company was 
one of 50 per cent., which was declared Dec. 10, 1794. 

The sale of goods was not rapid, and, as the demand 
seemed to be for imported fabrics, the stock accumulated 
so fast in the factory that it finally had to be sold at auc- 
tion. The business, which had never been a commercial 
success, was eventually sold in 1795 at auction, and the 
greater part of the machinery was bought by Jeremiah 
Wadsworth, who for a while carried on the business. It 
was finally given up, and for some time previous to April 
3, 1854, when the building (which stood on the bank of 
Little River at the foot of Mulberry Street) was burned, 
it was occupied by a manufacturer of soap and candles. 



FIRST WOOLEN MILL OPERATED WITH POWER MACHINERY 

According to Royal C. Taft, who investigated the matter, 
the first woolen mill that was successfully operated in the 
United States with power machinery was built in 1794 at 
the falls of the Parker River in Byfield Parish of Newbury- 
port, under the direction of John and Arthur Scholfield, 
who arrived in Boston from Saddleworth, Yorkshire, 



166 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

England, in May, 1793, and went to live in Charlestown, 
not far from Bunker Hill. Meeting Jedediah Morse, 
author of "Morse's Geography and Gazetteer," and telling 
him of their knowledge of the textile industry and the best 
methods of manufacturing, he became interested, and in- 
troduced them to people of wealth in Newburyport, who 
were desirous of starting the industry there, and by whom 
they were engaged to erect the mill. 

Most of the machinery was built in Newburyport by 
Messrs. Standring, Armstrong, and Guppy. Benjamin 
Greenleaf, Theophilus Parsons, William Bartlett, Moses 
Brown, and others were incorporated as the proprietors of 
the Newburyport Woolen Manufactory, with a capital in 
real estate of ten thousand pounds and in personal estate 
of eighty thousand pounds, and here was constructed and 
operated the first carding machine for wool in America. 
Until the mill was ready to contain it, it was worked by 
hand. John Scholfield was employed as agent, and for 
years the business was successfully conducted, broadcloth 
and flannel being made. It is not known how long the mill 
continued in operation, but it was burned Oct. 29, 1859. 

Previous to the Newburyport enterprise John Manning 
had in 1792 built a mill in Ipswich upon land granted 
by the town, in which broadcloths, blankets, and flannels 
were made, all the work of carding, spinning, and weaving 
being done by hand. The mill was a hundred and five feet 
long by thirty-two feet wide, two stories high, and built of 
wood. As it was not successful, cotton took the place of 
wool, but this, too, failed to pay, and finally in 1800 work 
stopped. 

After being with the Newburyport Woolen Mill for about 
five years, John Scholfield in 1789 hired for fourteen years 
water power on the Oxoboro River in Montville, Conn., 
moved there, and built the first woolen mill in Connecticut, 
which he operated with his brother Arthur until 1806, when 
he sold out to John and Nathan Comstock. In this same 



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THE STORY OF TEXTILES 167 

year he fitted up a factory he had bought at Stonington, 
Conn., and operated it. 

In the mean time Arthur Scholfield, who had gone to 
Pittsfield in 1800, built a woolen mill there, and started 
operations in November, 1801; and on Nov. 2, 1801, his 
first advertisement appeared in the Pittsfield Sun, advising 
the people of Pittsfield that he would card their wool and 
sell them woolens. In 1804 John Bissell, a leading mer- 
chant of Pittsfield, who had gone to New York to buy goods, 
brought home two pieces of Scholfield's cloths, gray mixed 
broadcloth, which he had bought for imported fabrics. 
James Madison in 1808 was inaugurated President in a 
suit made from thirteen yards of black broadcloth made by 
John Scholfield. In 1809 Daniel Day built a mill at Ux- 
bridge, Mass., twenty by forty feet, two stories, and put 
in a carding machine and picker, later adding to his mill 
a billy and jenny for weaving, and still later added five 
hand looms. 

The situation in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 
Pennsylvania when Samuel Slater arrived from England 
in 1789 was that textile manufacturing of both cotton and 
wool goods in factories on a scale large enough to meet 
some of the domestic demand had been established, and, 
though not a commercial success, was making some prog- 
ress. The little power machinery that was used was con- 
fined mainly to carding machines and spinning jennies, — 
imperfect machines which were either domestic attempts 
at copying the machines in use in England or crude pro- 
ductions of American inventors. No one had yet succeeded 
in water spinning, because Arkwright's machines could not 
be obtained from England, and, despite the inducements 
held out by various commercial bodies, no one had been 
able to make practical reproductions of the English ma- 
chines. The arrival of Slater marked a new and more 
flourishing era in textile making. 



CHAPTER VII 

ERA OF SAMUEL SLATER 

slater's arrival in AMERICA — GOES TO PROVIDENCE — STARTS 
FIRST COTTON MILL WITH ARKWRIGHT's MACHINES IN AMERICA — 
PAYMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF EMPLOYEES — STARTS HIS SECOND 
mill; the first with ARKWRIGHT MACHINERY IN MASSA- 
CHUSETTS — FIRST COMMISSION HOUSES — SHEPARD STARTS MILL 
AT WRENTHAM — OTHER MILLS START — WHITTENTON COTTON 
MILLS — START OF THE INDUSTRY IN CONNECTICUT — SPREAD 
OF INDUSTRY THROUGH INFLUENCE OF SLATER — GILMORE's 
LOOM — BEGINNING OF POWER WOOLEN MILLS IN RHODE ISLAND 
SOUTHERN DEVELOPMENT 

Samuel Slater has been rightly called the father of the 
American cotton industry, for to him more than to any one 
else was due the construction and first successful operation 
in America of Arkwright's system of cotton machines. 
Before Slater came to America, all attempts to make Ark- 
wright's machinery had been futile, despite the many in- 
ducements held out by various commercial bodies for 
practical Arkwright machines. 

Slater was the son of a yeoman farmer in Belper, Derby- 
shire, where he was born June 9, 1768, and was early ap- 
prenticed to Jedediah Strutt, who was a partner of Ark- 
wright, and had established one of the first cotton mills 
in Belper. He was with Strutt, who was a friend of his 
father, for over eight years, and later served as superin- 
tendent of Strutt's mill, so that he had a comprehensive 
knowledge of Arkwright's machines. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 169 

slater's arrival in AMERICA 

A few months prior to November, 1789, when he arrived 
in New York, he read in a Philadelphia paper an account 
of a bounty of a hundred pounds granted by the legislature 
of Pennsylvania to a person who had imperfectly succeeded 
in constructing a carding machine to make rolls for jennies. 
The account also told of the offers of other State govern- 
ments to encourage manufactures, and the great need in 
America of the proper textile machines. Pennsylvania, 
wishing to establish the cotton industry, had put a duty 
on fabrics of 10 per cent. Influenced by the pecuniary re- 
ward that America offered to one familiar with cotton 
spinning. Slater determined to emigrate secretly. Know- 
ing the stringent regulations of the English government 
to prevent a knowledge of the textile machines spreading 
abroad, having fixed the designs of Arkwright's machines in 
his mind, he set out for America without telling even his 
parents of his intentions. 

He had intended to go to Philadelphia, but upon his 
arrival he secured work with the New York Manufactur- 
ing Company. Becoming dissatisfied, however, with his 
prospects, and learning, from the captain of one of the 
Providence packets, of Mr. Moses Brown's interest in the 
textile business, Slater wrote to Mr. Brown, Dec. 2, 1789, 
that, as he had learned Mr. Brown "wanted a manager of 
cotton spinning, etc., in which business" he flattered him- 
self he could give the greatest satisfaction, "in making 
machinery, making good yarn, either for stockings or 
twist, as any that is made in England," if Mr. Brown was 
"not provided for," he should be "glad to serve" him. 
He asked Mr. Brown to drop him a line "respecting the 
amount of encouragement" he "wished to give." Slater 
stated that he had "had an oversight of Sir Richard Ark- 
wright's works," and was "in Mr. Strutt's mill upwards 
of eight years,'* and that the New York manufactory had 



170 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

but one card, two machines, and two spinning jennies which 
were hardly worth using. 

The New York manufactory was the outgrowth of 
"The New York Society for the Encouragement of Amer- 
ican Manufactures,'* which was organized late in 1788, 
and made at first only linen yarns and cloth; for their 
advertisement read, "For sale at the factory on Vesey 
Street, a quantity of brown linen sheeting, linen yarn of 
the first quality, hatchelled flax, tow and backings.'* 

In reply Moses Brown wrote him from Providence under 
date of Dec. 10, 1789, that "Almy and Brown who has 
the business in the cotton line," which Brown began, Almy 
being his son-in-law and Brown a kinsman, "did want the 
assistance of a person skilled in the frame or water spinning.'* 
An experiment had been made, but it had failed, as no one 
was acquainted with the business. "We hardly know 
what to say to thee, but if thou thought thou couldst per- 
fect and conduct them to profit, if thou wilt come and do 
it, thou shalt have all the profit made of them over and 
above the interest of the money they cost, and the wear 
and tear of them. We will find stock and be repaid in yarn 
as we may agree, for six months. And this we do for 
the information thou can give, if fully acquainted with the 
business." 

The letter concluded, "If thy present situation does 
not come up to what thou wishest, and, from thy knowl- 
edge of the business, can be ascertained of the advantages 
of the mills, so as to induce thee to come and work ours, 
and have the credit as well as advantages of perfecting the 
first water mill in America, we should be glad to engage 
thy care so long as thee can be made profitable to both 
and we can agree, I am for myself and Almy and Brown, 
thy friend, Moses Brown." 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 171 

GOES TO PROVIDENCE 

Moses Brown was a retired rich merchant of Providence 
who had long been identified with the East India trade, 
and had lately become interested in the cotton industry. 
He had purchased and installed at Pawtucket the imperfect 
machines of Daniel Anthony, Andrew Dexter, and Lewis 
Peck, and with his two relatives, William Almy and Smith 
Brown, was endeavoring to establish the cotton spinning. 

Accordingly, Slater, Jan. 18, 1790, went to Providence 
and showed Mr. Brown his apprentice indenture with Mr. 
Strutt, and Mr. Brown took Slater to Pawtucket and 
showed him the machinery that had failed to work. When 
Slater saw the machines, he shook his head and said: — 

"These will not do: they are good for nothing in their 
present condition, nor can they be made to answer." It 
was finally proposed that Slater should build wholly new 
machines after the Arkwright patents, but Slater would not 
consent until he was promised a man to work on wood who 
should be put under bonds not to steal the patterns or dis- 
close the nature of the work. 

"Under my proposals," said he, "if I do not make as 
good yarn as they do in England, I will have nothing for 
my services, but will throw the whole of what I have at- 
tempted over the border." 

Articles of partnership were drawn up April 5, 1790, 
between William Almy, Smith Brown, and Slater, under 
which they furnished the capital and Slater in return for 
constructing the machinery and spinning the cotton was to 
have one-half of the profits and own one-half of the ma- 
chinery. Almy and Brown were to have 23^ per cent, 
commission for the purchase of stock and 4 per cent, for 
selling yarn. Slater was charged one-half the expense 
of purchasing and constructing the machines and also for 
his living expenses while developing the business. The 
firm was to be Almy, Brown & Slater. 



172 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

At the time that Slater went to Pawtueket, Almy and 
Brown were manufacturing billies and jennies, and had 
carding machines driven by men, and wove and finished 
jeans, fustians, thicksetts, velveret, the work being done 
mostly by Irish emigrants. The spinning frame shown 
Slater, and which he discarded, was the one that Brown had 
bought from Andrew Dexter and Lewis Peck. It made 
very poor yarn, the cotton being carded by hand and 
"roped on a wooden wheel by a female." Brown had also 
bought and installed at Pawtueket the loom with fly shut- 
tle that Joseph Alexander and another Scotchman un- 
successfully attempted to operate in the market house at 
Providence. 

The building in which Slater's new machines were set 
up was the fulling mill of Ezekiel Carpenter, and stood on 
the south-west abutment of the Pawtueket bridge. It was 
swept away by a freshet in 1807. Slater at once began to 
build a water frame of twenty-four spindles, two carding 
machines, and the drawing and roping frames necessary for 
the spinners, and soon after added a frame of forty-eight 
spindles. Great secrecy was maintained while the ma- 
chinery was being made, shutters shielding the front win- 
dows and blinds covering the back windows. Sylvanus 
Brown cut out the parts of the spinning machines after 
Slater had chalked them out on the wood. 

Oziel Wilkinson, the clever blacksmith of Pawtueket with 
whom Slater boarded and whose daughter Hannah Slater 
married, made with his sons, under Slater's direction, the 
iron-work of the machines, while Pliny Earl, of Leicester, 
made the cards. At first the cards would not work, and, 
when Slater pointed out the defect. Earl and he beat 
them to the proper curve with a piece of grindstone. The 
power was supplied at the start by a wheel propelled by an 
old negro, Samuel Bruriius Jenks, but later water power 
was installed. 

When Slater started his cards, the water wheel was so 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 173 

exposed that it was frozen every night, and, as he could get 
no one to bear the cold of the water in order to break the 
ice to start the wheel, he himself had to spend two or three 
hours before breakfast every morning doing the work. 



STARTS FIRST COTTON MILL WITH ARKWRIGHT S MACHINES 

IN AMERICA 

It took Slater longer than he anticipated to finish his 
frames, so that it was not until Dec. 20, 1790, that he started 
three cards, drawing and roving, and seventy-two spindles 
in the clothier's shop of Carpenter at Pawtucket, where 
the machines were set up and driven by an old fulling 
water wheel. 

The cotton in Slater's time was laid by hand, a handful 
of it being taken up and pulled apart with both hands. 
It was shifted to the right hand to get the staple straight 
and to fix the handful so as to hold it firm. Then it was 
applied to the surface of the breaker, the hand being moved 
horizontally to and fro until the cotton was prepared. 

Soon they had several thousand pounds of yarn on hand. 
The infant industry quickly felt the need of government 
protection, and Moses Brown wrote, April 19, 1791, to one of 
the proprietors of the Beverly Cotton Manufactory upon 
the subject of applying to Congress for some encouragement 
to the cotton manufacturers, to take the shape of an addi- 
tional duty that could be offered as a bounty partly for 
sowing and raising cotton in the Southern States and partly 
as a bounty on cotton goods that might be manufactured. 

In a letter to John Dexter, Oct. 15, 1791, Moses Brown 
said that, previous to Slater's arrival, Almy and Brown 
had been making warps of linen, and that it was more 
than twelve months before Slater could complete enough 
machinery to spin perfectly single warps of cotton. During 
the time that Slater was working on his machinery, linen 
warps were woven, and the spinning jenny was operated 



174 ^ THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

in the cellars of dwelling-houses. Finding the incon- 
venience of sending out the spinning, Slater and his partners 
erected in 1793 a new mill, called the "Old Slater Mill," 
and dye-shop, about forty feet long, twenty-six feet wide, 
two stories high, with an attic; and later, also, additions 
were built for singeing, calendering, and other machines. 
Alexander Hamilton, in his report as Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, made Dec. 5, 1791, said, — 

"The manufactory at Providence has the merit of being 
the first in introducing into the United States the celebrated 
cotton mill, which not only furnishes materials for that 
manufactory itself but for the supply of private families, 
for household manufacture." 



PAYMENT AND DISCIPLINE OP EMPLOYEES 

According to Moses Brown the manufacturing of the 
mill yarn was done by children from eight to fourteen years 
old. Some of the first yarn spun by Slater was as fine as 
No. 40, and with some of the first cloth made from the 
warp was sent to the Secretary of the Treasury. Before 
Slater began manufacturing, a yard of cloth made by the 
wheel and loom cost fifty cents, and never less than forty 
cents. A few years later it could be bought for nine or 
ten cents. 

As employees received but eighty cents to $1.30 and $1.40 
per week, and indoor work was not alluring, it was difficult 
to secure the right kind of help. Slater introduced the 
English apprentice system, but it did not work, and was 
soon given up. One boy, who found the work too hard and 
discipline too strict, complained to a companion, who replied, 
"Very well, act like the devil, and Slater will lay you off." 

Slater maintained a strict yet sort of paternal care 
over the welfare of his employees, starting in 1793 the 
first Sunday-school in America, and also day schools for 
the workmen's children. The first market for Slater's yarn 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 175 

was Salem, Hartford the next, and Philadelphia the third. 
The first commission merchant to sell yarn was Elijah 
Waring. New York and Boston at first took hardly any, 
and much was sold at the mill. 

As Slater boarded with the Wilkinson family, the women 
were naturally much interested in the cotton thread, and 
finally Hannah (Mrs. Slater) conceived the idea of twisting 
some fine Surinam cotton yarn Slater had spun, in place of 
the linen twisted yarn, on their own spinning wheels for 
sewing thread, and finally in 1793 made the first cotton 
thread made in America. A manufactory for the thread 
was established by the Wilkinson Brothers. 

When Slater commenced his work, it was beyond the 
power of America to compete with English goods, but in 
fourteen months after Slater had perfected his machines 
Brown wrote the Secretary of the Treasury that machinery 
and mills could be erected within one year to supply the 
whole United States with yarn and render its importation 
unnecessary. 

Within two years of Slater's starting to manufacture 
he had accumulated two thousand pounds of yarn, which 
so alarmed the careful and thrifty Moses Brown that he 
wrote Slater, — 

"Thee must shut down thy gates or thee will spin all my 
farms into cotton yarn." 



STARTS HIS SECOND MILL; THE FIRST WITH ARKWRIGHT 
MACHINERY IN MASSACHUSETTS 

Slater's work was successful from the outset, and in 
1799 he formed a partnership with Oziel Wilkinson, his 
father-in-law, Timothy Green, and William Wilkinson, his 
brother-in-law, under the firm name of Samuel Slater 
& Co., and built in 1799 on the east side of the river at 
Pawtucket, in what was Rehoboth, Mass., the mill called 
the "New Mill," also "The White Mill," which was the 



176 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

first mill to use Arkwright's machines in Massachusetts, 
Slater superintended both old and new mills, getting $1.50 
a day per mill, or $3 a day salary, in addition to his share 
of the profits. To the north of this mill was the Bleaching 
Meadow where, upon stakes driven into the ground, skeins 
of cotton were stretched and cloth was spread upon the 
ground for bleaching. "Mother Cole," who managed the 
bleaching, and her assistants sprinkled the cotton with 
watering-pots. 

The cotton used by Slater was from Cayenne (French 
Guiana), Surinam (Dutch Guiana), and Hispaniola (Hayti), 
and brought from ninety cents to $1.10 per pound. The 
cotton was cleaned and whipped by poor families, to whom 
it was put out at from four to six cents per pound, accord- 
ing to the cleanliness of the cotton. 

FIRST COMMISSION HOUSES 

The production of the mills was sold through agents 
in Salem, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, 
and these agents grew to be the leading commission houses 
in these centres. The first of these early agents, as we have 
learned, was Elijah Waring, of Philadelphia; and another 
was Jeremiah Brown, of Philadelphia, a brother of Moses 
Brown. Many letters exist to show the business acumen 
of Slater in transacting his business with these agents. A 
Boston newspaper in May, 1809, contained the following 
advertisement, which shows that as early as 1809 Slater 
had begun the weaving of cotton: — 

"Factory Cotton and Thread Store, 26 Court Street, 
opposite Concert Hall. George Council, agent for Almy 
and Brown, of Providence and Pawtucket Manufactories, 
has now for sale from eight to ten thousand weight of yarn 
for weaving, etc., three thousand yards of cloth, such as 
checks, stripes, chambrays, ginghams, bed-ticks, shirting, 
and sheeting cotton, etc." 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 177 

Up to 1789 the construction of Arkwrlght's machines 
and the operation of the mills using them had been con- 
fined to Mr. Slater and his associates, but soon after 1789 
several of Slater's men left his employ and erected mills 
for themselves or others. 



SHEPARD STARTS MILL AT WRENTHAM 

One of the first cotton mills that was started through 
the influence of Samuel Slater was that of Benjamin Shep- 
ard, Wrentham, Mass. Shepard was a farmer. He in- 
herited the farm on which he lived from his father, and 
evidently had been engaged in the homespun industry 
some time previous to 1792, when he erected a mill and 
received a loan of three hundred pounds on June 20, 1793, 
from the legislature to carry on his business. 

The mill was built on a brook which he had dammed 
on his farm, and here he manufactured fustians, cotton 
velvets, and similar fabrics. He colored his yarns in a dye- 
house, and wove them on a hand loom in a weave-shop that 
adjoined the factory. His factory was about fifty feet 
in length, twenty feet in width, two stories high, and was 
divided into compartments convenient for carrying on the 
business. It contained a carding machine, run by water, 
two spinning jennies, one roping machine, four looms, one 
warping mill, accommodations for singeing cloth, one cal- 
ender, operated by a horse, and had also facilities for 
coloring and finishing cotton cloths, and many other small 
machines. He could card about one hundred pounds of 
cotton per week, spin from seventy -two to one hundred 
and twenty pounds, weave one hundred and twenty yards, 
and color and finish the material. 

His wife conducted an industry on her own account for 
some years, taking yarn and waste from her husband's 
mill and working it up into various fabrics. A quaint 
document is a contract made by her with Stephen Olney, 



178 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

of Providence, in which he agreed to furnish her a chaise 
for the value of a chaise in goods of her own manufacture. 
The business was carried on by Shepard's sons, and sub- 
sequently came into the possession of others, and has been 
in operation for over one hundred years. It has probably 
been longer in continuous operation than any other mill 
in the country. 

Colonel Job Green, John Allen, and others in 1794 estab- 
lished at Centreville, in the town of Warwick, the second 
cotton mill in Rhode Island. It was not successful until 
1799, when one-half of the property was bought for twenty- 
five hundred dollars by William Almy and Obadiah Brown. 
Full control was secured by Almy and Brown after buying 
the other half in 1801, and the story goes that Brown and 
John Allen visited Slater's mill at Pawtucket to see how 
things were run there and to get some useful hints. Slater, 
having no interest in the Warwick mill, was not at all 
pleased by Allen's investigation, and, when Allen attempted 
to measure some of the machines, took hold of him and 
threatened to throw him out of the window. Obadiah, who 
was a partner of Slater, as well as of Allen, took the meas- 
ure from Allen, saying, *'I will finish thy work, and I will 
see if Samuel will serve me as he did thee." Slater did not 
care to attack his own partner. The measurements were 
taken, and the Warwick mill was thereby equipped with 
better machines. 

The second cotton mill in the Rehoboth part of Paw- 
tucket was built in 1805 by those who took the name Paw- 
tucket Cotton and Oil Manufacturing Company. As it 
was of wood painted yellow, it was known as the "Yellow 
Mill" to distinguish it from the "White Mill" of Samuel 
Slater & Co. just above it, and the "Green Mill" of Almy, 
Brown & Slater across the river. It started in the fall 
of 1805, and its business was so remunerative that its owners 
built a mill called the "Stone Mill" in 1823. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 179 

OTHER MILLS START 

Benjamin S. Walcott, who had worked on the construc- 
tion of Slater's first mill, with Rufus and Elisha Waterman 
erected a mill at Cumberland, R.L, in 1802. Another 
workman, Charles Bobbins, built the first mill for cotton 
manufacturing in New Hampshire at New Ipswich, on the 
Souhegan River, and it started on Dec. 15, 1804, four and 
one-half pounds of yarn being spun, which sold for $3.42. 
The original proprietors of this first mill were Charles 
Barrett and Bobbins. Daniel Brooks, who had been em- 
ployed in the mill at New Ipswich, N.H., erected in 1807 
the second cotton mill in New Hampshire, a short distance 
below the first mill. It subsequently came into the hands 
of Seth Mason, Jesse Holbin, and Samuel Batchelder. These 
two, the first cotton mills in New Hampshire, contained 
about five hundred spindles each. 

Another employee at one of the first Pawtucket mills, 
B. S. Walcott, Jr., with his father erected the first cotton 
mill in Oneida County, New York, near Utica, in 1807 or 
1808. Within three years of Slater's completion of his 
first mill in 1791, ten mills were completed or being com- 
pleted in Rhode Island, and one in Connecticut, and before 
1808 fifteen mills altogether had been put in operation, 
using in all about eight thousand spindles. By 1809 
eighty-seven mills had been erected, using thirty-one thou- 
sand spindles. 

The first cotton mill near Boston to use Slater's system, 
and the second one in Massachusetts, was a small mill in 
Beverly on the Bass River, which was opened in 1801 or 
early in 1802. It had six water frames of seventy-two 
spindles each, which had been built at Paterson, N.J., by 
a mechanic named Clark, who went to Beverly to install 
the machines. A lack of water power and other causes 
rendered the venture unsuccessful. 



180 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

WHITTENTON COTTON MILLS 

The Whittenton Cotton Mills at Taunton, of which 
Lawrence & Co. are the agents, was also started at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. The mills are an 
offshoot of the Colonial Iron Works established there in 
1653 by James Leonard, Sr. Iron had been discovered on 
the flats about Two Mile River and other localities near 
Taunton, and in 1652 James and Henry Leonard, of Brain- 
tree, entered into an agreement with the town of Taunton 
to set up iron works there. James Leonard went to Taunton 
and established the iron works in 1653, and for twelve years 
was the foreman in charge of the industry. 

He subsequently bought ten acres of land with a water 
privilege on Two Mile River, built a forge which he called 
the Whittington Forge, and obtained permission to build 
a dam and flow a neighbor's land. At his death he left 
the Whittington Iron Works to his three sons. The grist- 
mill part of the interest, which had been erected on the land 
of the iron works, was sold in 1810 to Samuel Crocker, 
Thomas Bush, and Charles Richmond, who had been clerks 
in the iron business at Whittington. 

They built a nail mill, and in 1807 added a story to the nail 
mill for machines to spin cotton yarn that the farmers' 
wives wove into cloth by domestic labor. The Whitting- 
ton Nail and Yarn Mill was burned down in 1811, and a 
cotton mill was erected on the site from the trees which two 
months before had been growing on the timber lot of the 
tract. 

Crocker and Richmond after the death of Bush in 1817 
imported patterns of Slater's power loom and made the 
first good cotton cloth about Taunton. This cotton inter- 
est was incorporated January, 1823, in the Taunton Manu- 
facturing Company, of which Samuel Crocker, Charles 
Richmond, and others were the incorporators. The incor- 
poration was for two hundred thousand dollars in real 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 181 

property and four hundred thousand dollars in personal 
property, and was for the purpose of rolling copper and 
iron and manufacturing cotton and wool. Among the real 
estate was the Whittenton Cotton Mill and the Nail Works. 
In 1835 James K. Mills & Co., who had been associated 
with the original incorporators, withdrew, taking as the 
company's share the Whittenton Mills, the "g" having 
been dropped in the name of the mill and the "i" changed 
to an *'e." The mills failed in 1857, and the business in 
1858 was bought by Willard Lovering. In 1880 it was in- 
corporated for six hundred thousand dollars, with William 
C. Lovering, president, Charles L. Lovering, treasurer, 
Henry M. Lovering, agent and clerk, since which time 
it has been in prosperous operation. 



START OF THE INDUSTRY IN CONNECTICUT 

An early effort to spin cotton was made in 1790 at Nor- 
wich, Conn., by Lathrop and Eells. The beginning of 
the textile industry in Norwich goes back to 1766, when 
Christopher Leffingwell commenced stocking weaving with 
William Russell, an Englishman, the first operator. For 
a time it was a small concern, working but two or three 
looms, but by 1791 nine looms were producing from twelve 
hundred to fifteen hundred pairs of hose made from worsted, 
cotton, linen, or silk, the silk hose selling from twelve to 
twenty shillings per pair. Gloves and purses were also 
made, five workmen being employed. 

The business was later carried on by Jeremiah Griffing, 
and from Norwich the stocking industry spread in 1790 
to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Hartford, New Haven, Litchfield, 
and Wallingford, Conn., where stocking looms similar to 
those that were used in Norwich were employed. 

This industry attracted the attention of Joshua Lathrop, 
who with his brother conducted a retail and wholesale 
general store in Norwich. He engaged in 1790 a man 



182 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

named Herrick, who had been employed in the cotton fac- 
tory in Beverly, to come to Norwich and start cotton manu- 
facturing. 

It is not known whether the machines were imported 
or made from the crude models that were used at Bev- 
erly. A building was erected, and one carding machine, 
six spinning jennies, and six looms like those in the cotton 
factory at Beverly were installed. Machines were added, 
and fabrics to the amount of about two thousand yards 
per year were being turned out. 

An advertisement which appeared March 19, 1783, 
stated : — 

"Lathrop and Eells have just finished a variety of cotton 
goods consisting of Royal Ribs, Ribdclures, Ribdurants, 
Ribdenims, Ribbets, Zebrays, Satinetts, Satin-stripes, Satin- 
cords, Thicksetts, Corduroys, Stockinetts, Dimotys, Feath- 
ered Stripes, Bird's-eye, Denims, Jeans, Jeanetts, Fustians, 
Bed Tickings, that will hold feathers. The above goods 
are well finished, and for durability undoubtedly superior 
to European manufacture. Gentleman Merchants, and 
others, who feel disposed to encourage home manufactures, 
are invited to call and see for themselves, and may be as- 
sured they will be supplied as low as they can furnish them- 
selves from any quarter." 

Although ample capital was back of the business, it 
could not be made profitable, and the business was not 
long continued. 

SPREAD OF INDUSTRY THROUGH INFLUENCE OF SLATER 

The arrival of John Slater, a younger brother of Samuel, 
from England in 1803, who had been urged by his older 
brother to come to this country and engage in business 
with him, led to the erection at Smithfield, now called 
Slatersville, in 1807 of the mills which John Slater man- 
aged. John, who had been apprenticed to the trade of a 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 183 

millwright, had a thorough knowledge of mill construction 
in England, and furthermore was advised by his brother 
Samuel to visit, before sailing for this country, Manchester 
and Oldham to secure knowledge of the latest improvements 
in English machinery. This John did, so that, when he 
arrived here, he had a knowledge of Samuel Crompton's 
mule, which had been invented in 1779, but of which 
Samuel Slater knew nothing, so slow were the English mills 
to adopt the mule at the time that Samuel Slater left 
England. 

John Slater entered the employment of Almy, Brown & 
Slater at Pawtucket, and, when it was decided in 1805 to 
begin cotton manufacturing in a new place, John Slater 
set out on a horseback journey to locate a site. He rode 
through the wilderness in the northern part of the town 
of Smithfield, and coming to a stream called by the Indians 
the Monhegan River, which was the southern branch of 
the Blackstone River, saw at once that water power pos- 
sessed great possibilities. At one place it fell about forty 
feet from a series of natural reservoirs, which gave promise 
of water even in a dry season. 

Sufficient land was bought to control the water power, 
and a partnership was formed by William Almy, Obadiah 
Brown, Samuel Slater, and John Slater, under the name of 
Almy, Brown & Slaters. The mill was completed in 1806, 
and spinning was begun early in 1807. The locality in 
which the mill was built is now called Slatersville. 



GILMORE S LOOM 

It was to John Slater that William Gilmore presented 
his plans for building a loom. Gilmore had arrived in 
Boston in 1815, and, knowing how to build power looms and 
dressing machines, was advised to apply to the Slaters. 
He went to them, and offered to build machinery for power 
loom weaving, with the understanding that he was to re- 



184 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

ceive nothing, should he be unable to put the looms into 
successful operation. 

The conservatism of Samuel Slater could not be over- 
come, and the proposal was therefore turned down, al- 
though John Slater was in favor of the proposition. Had 
Samuel Slater accepted the proposal, he would have been 
the first not only to have introduced into Rhode Island 
cotton spinning, but also power loom weaving. 

Gilmore, after being employed for a while in the ma- 
chine shop of the factory at Slatersville, went to the Lyman 
Cotton Manufacturing Company, which had been started 
early in 1810 by Judge Daniel Lyman at North Providence, 
R.I., and made the same proposal to Judge Lyman that he 
had made to the Slaters. Gilmore's offer was accepted, 
so that the Scotch loom, which was invented by William 
Horrocks, of Stockport, England, during the years from 
1805 to 1813, was first introduced into Rhode Island by 
Judge Daniel Lyman and Gilmore. 

This loom differed from the Waltham loom of Francis 
C. Lowell, who introduced the latter into the mills of the 
Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Mass., in 
this respect: in Gilmore's loom the lift and fall of the 
harness were accomplished by a crank, while in the Wal- 
tham loom the work was done by a cam. Then, too, it 
cost but seventy dollars to build a Gilmore loom, while the 
Waltham loom cost almost three hundred dollars. Judge 
Lyman did not restrict the use of the loom in any way by 
patenting it, but permitted Mr. Gilmore to sell to David 
Wilkinson for ten dollars the use of all his drawings, so that 
it was not long before the Scotch loom, as the Gilmore 
loom was known, was being used quite generally by the 
mills in the lower part of New England, looms being built 
by David Wilkinson and others. 

The first mill to use steam was erected by Mr. Slater 
and his assistants in 1827 at Providence, and it was run 
with anthracite coal from the Schuylkill, producing yarn 



i ° 

I- « 

ft- O 

a o 

S- O 



Si 
a <; 




THE STORY OF TEXTILES 185 

No. 80, the cloth of which was said to be the finest in the 
country. 

Slater's successful use of Arkwright's machines not only 
brought him and his associates great prosperity, but placed 
cotton manufacturing in the United States on a secure 
footing. By this time Slater had become interested in 
wool as well as cotton, and was the leading textile manufact- 
urer of his era. The War of 1812 greatly increased his 
prosperity, as cotton cloth sold at forty cents a yard and 
the demand was unlimited. 

Societies sprang up in most of the States to encourage 
manufacture, and Congress passed acts protecting the 
infant industry against foreign competition. By 1805 the 
total consumption of cotton in the United States was little 
more than 1,000 bales: in 1816 90,000 bales of cotton 
were used. In 1805 the mills of the United States could 
not furnish the army with 6,000 blankets: in 1816 there 
were $40,000,000 invested in cotton manufacture and 
$12,000,000 in woolen. In the same year the whole amount 
of goods made in the United States was $50,000,000 or 
$60,000,000: by 1836 $250,000,000 was made, of which 
$25,000,000 was exported. 

Mills continued to increase rapidly, so that by the open- 
ing of the war with Great Britain in 1812 there were in 
Rhode Island thirty-three factories using 30,663 spindles 
and twenty factories in Massachusetts using 17,371 spindles, 
or fifty-three factories with 48,034 spindles in all. Each 
spindle produced enough yarn weekly to make 23^ yards of 
cloth of a value then of about thirty cents a yard, or in 
all 128,635 yards of cloth, worth $96,476. 

The effect of Slater's influence on the woolen industry 
was soon seen in Rhode Island, where a number of at- 
tempts were made prior to 1800 to card and spin wool by 
power. At the time of Slater's death in 1835 the American 
textile industry was firmly established. 



186 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

BEGINNING OF POWER WOOLEN MILLS IN RHODE ISLAND 

The history of the starting of the woolen industry in 
Rhode Island on a scale worthy of being called manu- 
facturing compasses the story of the business ability and 
foresight of Rowland Hazard. An attempt to card wool 
by water power had been made in 1800 by one Irvin, an 
Englishman, but it was a failure, and it was not until Mr. 
Hazard appeared that it was carried to success. 

Mr. Hazard had been a commission merchant and im-r 
porter in Charleston, and had married Mary Peace, the 
daughter of Isaac Peace, a wealthy merchant there. He 
bought in 1802 from John Warner Knowles one-half of a 
ten-acre property, including a mill privilege, dam, and a 
fulling mill which Benjamin Rodman had built a number 
of years before. Benjamin Rodman, who had inherited 
a mill privilege and saw-mill on Rocky Brook, a tributary 
of the Saugatuck River, from his father about 1790, built 
a fulling mill on the land, and it was conveyed with the 
ten acres in 1802 to his grandson, the aforesaid John Warner. 
Here Messrs. EJiowles and Hazard commenced fulling and 
dressing cloth, and in 1803 wool carding was added to the 
industry. Later Joseph Congdon became one of the 
partners. 

About 1808 Mr. Hazard, who had closed out his business 
in the South, commenced the weaving of cloth, employing 
the hand looms in the homes of his neighborhood. At 
first the fabric was a sort of linsey-woolsey, but had a warp 
of cotton. It was largely used for women's garments or for 
men's summer wear. The business grew, and Mr. Hazard 
in 1814 contracted with Thomas R. Williams to set up four 
looms of his own make. It is said that those were prob- 
ably the first power looms successfully operated in America. 
It is also said that Mr. Hazard was the first one in this 
country to employ water power to operate the spinning 
jenny. Mr. Hazard finally retired, and the business was 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 187 

carried on with great success by his enterprising sons and 
their children under the name of the Peace Dale Manu- 
facturing Company, so called from that part of South 
Kingston which had been known for three-quarters of a 
century as Peace Dale, and was probably named from 
Mary Peace, the first Mrs. Hazard. 

The stimulating effect of the growth of the cotton indus- 
try was further seen in the establishment in 1814 of the 
Lynn Linen Spinning Factory Company, which purposed 
to do for linen what had already been done for cotton. 
A factory of wood, three stories high, was erected on the 
east side of the Saugus River, and the manufacture of sail 
duck was completed. This factory was quite prosperous 
until the end of the War of 1812, when the large importa- 
tion of linen forced it out of business. 

Another attempt was made in 1816 by Nathaniel Perry, 
who built a dam over the brook in North Saugus, and 
erected a large wooden building to spin and weave a finer 
kind of linen; but this, too, was a failure. 



SOUTHERN DEVELOPMENT 

The spinning and weaving of cotton began in a desultory 
way in the South soon after it was found that cotton was 
a profitable crop and the growing commenced on a com- 
mercial scale, but home spinning and weaving of cotton 
for domestic use was early universal in the South. Thomas 
Jefferson speaks of employing in his household two spinning 
jennies, a carding machine, and a loom with a fiying shuttle, 
by which he made the more than two thousand yards of 
cloth which his family and servants required yearly. In a 
letter written by him in 1786 we have learned that he wrote: 
"The four southernmost states make a great deal of cotton. 
Their poor are almost entirely clothed in it in winter and 
summer. It is as well manufactured as the calicoes of 
Europe." 



188 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

The first cotton mill in South Carolina, as far as can be 
ascertained, was started by horse-power in 1787 on James 
Island, near Charleston. It is said to have contained 
eighty-four spindles and to have been first driven by horse- 
power. One of the earliest developments of manufacturing 
in the South was in Baltimore, Md., and was the outgrowth 
of a meeting of tradesmen, manufacturers, and others that 
was held Feb. 24, 1789, at which a petition to the United 
States Congress was presented. This petition recited that 
America was now freed from the commercial shackles 
which had long bound her and could become independent 
in fact as well as in name. The petitioners therefore hoped 
that the encouragement of American manufactures would 
receive the early attention of the Supreme Legislature of 
the land, as the United States had resources amply suflS- 
cient to enable them to become a great manufacturing 
country. The petitioners hoped, in conclusion, that the 
Supreme Legislature would place such duties on all foreign 
articles that can be made in America as will give a just and 
decided preference to domestic goods. 

On May 2, 1789, a meeting of citizens was held at Stark's 
Tavern, Baltimore, for the purpose of establishing a cotton 
manufactory. A committee was appointed, which led to 
the organization of the Baltimore Manufacturing Company 
with a capital of ten thousand pounds, divided into a hun- 
dred shares of a hundred pounds each. A meeting was held 
on June 3, at which directors were elected and advertise- 
ments prepared for looms, spinning wheels, check wheels, 
etc., and for skilled manufacturers of cotton, flax, and wool. 
Joseph Low seems to have been made manager, for he sub- 
sequently advertised for weavers, and directed applicants, 
who would receive liberal wages, to apply at the factory, 
where a few women could be set to work winding yarn. 

The last reference to this manufacturing company is 
on April 1, 1791, when an advertisement of the directors' 
meeting appeared in the Maryland Journal. It is thought 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 189 

that the industry was not carried on with any great success, 
for no subsequent records of it have been found. 

A later attempt was made at Elkton, Md., when the Cecil 
Manufacturing Company, the first mill for the manufactur- 
ing of woolen fabrics in Maryland, began business in 1795. 
The first industry in Baltimore had been confined to cotton 
goods, although the original resolutions spoke as if woolen 
as well as cotton goods were contemplated. The chief 
promoter of the Cecil Manufacturing Company was Colonel 
Henry HoUingsworth, of Elkton, Md., who purchased on 
July 31, 1794, ten acres of land on both sides of the 
Little Elk River, and organized the company about Nov. 
1, 1794. 

A factory of stone, sixty feet long, thirty-six feet wide, 
and three stories high, was constructed, and machinery 
installed that was imported from Europe. The mill was 
burned in 1796, and a new mill was immediately built. 
Five hundred and ninety -five acres of land adjoining the 
site of the property were subsequently purchased for pas- 
turing sheep to supply the mill with wool, and in 1805 John 
Wilson, of Yorkshire, England, was engaged as manager. 
So excellent were the goods that cloth was made into a 
suit of clothes that was worn by President Jefferson at his 
inauguration. The enterprise was undoubtedly a success, 
and was carried on for a number of years. At the close of 
the War of 1812 the immense influx of foreign goods stopped 
its wheels, and for a long while the property remained idle. 
It was finally used as a paper mill, but was burned to the 
ground Jan. 9, 1853. 

One of the most unique organizations for the encourag- 
ing of American industries was that organized by a num- 
ber of gentlemen on the 17th of January, 1789, at Wilming- 
ton, Del. The organization was called the Delaware 
System for the Encouragement and Promotion of the 
Manufactories of the United States. The members agreed 
to appear annually on the first of the year in a full and 



190 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

complete suit of American manufacture, to encourage the 
raising of sheep and the growth of hemp and flax, to dis- 
courage the importation of foreign articles, and always to 
give preference to American manufactures where there 
was a reasonable proportion between the price and the 
quality. Other organizations, as we have seen, were es- 
tablished in other centres, but none was quite so specific 
in its articles of incorporation as this. 

A cotton mill was started in Wilmington, Del., by Jacob 
Broome in 1795, and six small horse-power mills for the 
spinning of cotton were started in 1809 in Kentucky. A 
water-power mill was put in operation the same year in 
Petersburgh, Va., also at Nashville, Tenn., but the real 
development of cotton spinning in the South has been largely 
since the Civil War. 

The cotton for the spinning process was prepared by the 
farm laborers, who picked the seed from the lint by hand, 
and it was not until the invention of Whitney's saw-gin in 
1793 that cotton growing was materially increased. We 
have already learned how it started in the South in the 
story of cotton. The rapid development of the cotton 
growth after the invention of the gin is seen from the fact 
that in 1790 two million pounds were grown in the South; 
in 1796, ten million; in 1810, eighty million; and in 1820, 
one hundred and sixty million. By 1840 cotton pro- 
duction had so largely exceeded the consumption that the 
prices became very low, and in 1844 reached an average 
of 5.63 cents. At the beginning of the Civil War the South 
by means of cotton, which had become the staple product, 
had reached a degree of prosperity when its property valu- 
ation was $5,200,000,000, or 433^^ per cent, of the total prop- 
erty valuation of the country, which was $12,000,000,000. 
The Civil War and the subsequent blockade of the Southern 
ports cut down the supply of raw cotton enormously and 
ruined the South. The planters were bankrupt, and many 
ended their year in debt to their factors, only the most 




Jramis f.^Cxjto^U. 

DIED 1817. 

{Courtesy of C. J. H. Woodbury) 

The only likeness extant of Francis C, Lowell. This silhouette was found 
back of a picture in the office of the Boston Manufacturing Company, at 
Waltham, Massachusetts, by the late A. M. Goodale, who was long the 
agent of the company. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 191 

skilful farmers being able to work their way to a better 
financial condition. 

Little by little cotton spinning began to establish itself 
in the South, and by 1880 had reached a point where the 
Southern mills were using 12 per cent, of the total amount 
consumed in the country, and in 1910 the amount con- 
sumed was 45 per cent. To-day the South practically con- 
trols the trade with China in cheap goods from this country. 

Much of the Southern industry owes its development to 
New England capital, for many of the foresighted New 
England merchants, seeing the possibility of Southern 
mill development, invested their money in the promotion 
and erection of Southern mills. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EEA OF LOWELL, APPLETON, MOODY, JACKSON, AND 

BOOTT 

FIRST COMPLETE COTTON MILL IN THE WORLD LOWELL VISITS 

ENGLISH MILLS — ORGANIZATION OF THE BOSTON MANUFACTUR- 
ING COMPANY — CARE OF EMPLOYEES — SALE OF GOODS — WALTHAM 

versus rhode island system of manufacturing — the foun- 
dation OF THE CITY OF LOWELL AND THE STARTING OF THE 
MERRIMAC MANUFACTURING COMPANY — NAMING OF LOWELL — 
STARTING OF FIRST MILLS 

The first mill in the world where the whole process of 
cotton manufacturing, from spinning to weaving, was 
carried on by power, was that of the Boston Manufacturing 
Company, which was incorporated Feb. 23, 1813, with a 
capital of four hundred thousand dollars and was erected 
later the same year at Waltham, from whence it took its 
better-known name of *'The Waltham Company." The 
enterprise was the conception of Francis Cabot Lowell and 
Patrick Tracy Jackson, and it grew from investigations of 
textile manufacturing which Lowell had made in England. 

Previous to the starting of the Waltham mill the processes 
of spinning and weaving were carried on in separate es- 
tablishments in both England and America, those who 
wove buying their twist of those who spun. It was the 
original purpose of Lowell and his associates to construct 
a weaving mill to do solely by power what had previ- 
ously been done by hand, but it was learned that it would 
be cheaper to spin the twist rather than buy it, and ac- 
cordingly the mill was built with about seventeen hundred 
spindles. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 193 

LOWELL VISITS ENGLISH MILLS 

Francis Cabot Lowell, a Boston merchant, who was born 
in Newburyport on April 7, 1775, and was graduated at 
Harvard in 1793, while visiting England and Scotland with 
his family in 1811, met at Edinburgh Nathan Appleton, 
and told him that he thought the cotton manufacturing 
then monopolized by England might well be carried on in 
America. He further informed Appleton that he had deter- 
mined, before returning to America, to visit Manchester 
and obtain all the information to be had on the cotton 
machinery. Appleton urged him to do so, and promised 
his co-operation. 

When Lowell returned to America in 1813, he had suc- 
ceeded not only in seeing the closely guarded machines, 
but in getting a sufficiently clear idea of their construction 
to carry back to America the ability to make them. 
He talked over American conditions with Patrick Tracy 
Jackson, his brother-in-law, another prosperous Boston 
merchant, and the latter consented to engage in the enter- 
prise with him. 

Not only was machinery taking the place of manual 
labor in spinning, but Lowell knew that power looms had 
been introduced, although he had been unable to secure 
any accurate knowledge of these particular machines, owing 
to the secrecy which surrounded them. Skill and reputa- 
tion, cheapness of labor and abundance of capital, were 
the advantages of the English manufacturer; but in favor 
of New England was the great abundance of superior water 
power and the opportunity to get raw material cheaper 
because of the nearness to the source of the cotton supply. 
It was also believed that the educational and moral su- 
periority of the New England population and its enterprise 
would aid in the overcoming of English competition. 



194 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

OKGANIZATION OF THE BOSTON MANUFACTURING COMPANY 

With these thoughts in mind Mr. Lowell and Mr. Jackson 
bought the water power rights at Waltham, of John Boies' 
Paper Mill, and incorporated in 1813 the Boston Manu- 
facturing Company, otherwise known as the Waltham 
Company, of which Mr. Jackson agreed to assume the 
management. Under the company's charter the author- 
ized capital was four hundred thousand dollars, but only 
a hundred thousand dollars were to be raised until the ex- 
periment had been made. Most of the stock was taken by 
Mr. Lowell and Mr. Jackson and their friends. Mr. Apple- 
ton took five thousand dollars' worth. 

As the war with England precluded communication 
with that country and no designs or models of looms could 
be procured, Mr. Lowell set about inventing a power loom, 
aided by Paul Moody, an expert mechanic of Amesbury. 
For months Lowell carried on experiments in a store on 
Broad Street, Boston, employing a man to turn a crank. 
A practical loom was completed and installed in the fall 
of 1814 in the new mill which had recently been com- 
pleted at Waltham. The first mill was of brick, five stories 
high, ninety feet long, forty-five feet wide, had a roof of 
double pitch, known as the "factory" roof, which was trussed 
and braced to be very strong. It contained three thousand 
spindles, and turned out goods at the rate of four thousand 
yards per week. 

According to Kurd's History of Middlesex County, 
the first record of the work of the Waltham mill is on the 
books of the company under date of Feb. 2, 1816, at which 
time the entry was made of " 1242 yards, 4-4, or thirty-six 
inch wide cotton." So that this entry probably records 
the earliest date when the first cotton cloth was made in 
the world by power and the whole manufacturing process 
was under one roof. 

The loom invented by Mr. Lowell was different from the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 195 

English loom that afterward became public in that the 
principal movement was by a cone revolving with an ec- 
centric motion, that has given place to the crank motion. 
The power loom necessitated changes in the spinning proc- 
ess, particularly in sizing the warp. Drawings of Hor- 
rocks's dressing machine were secured from England, and 
a machine with improvements was made and installed at 
Waltham. To meet the need for winding the threads 
from the bobbins on to the beam, Mr. Moody invented 
the ingenious warper. Imperative necessity for a bobbin 
and fly, or jack, frame, arose for spinning roving, and Mr. 
Moody and Mr. Lowell invented the double speeder, which 
required the most careful mathematical calculations, and 
these Mr. Lowell could supply. William Bowditch, the 
mathematician, who was called into the patent litigation 
on the speeder, expressed great surprise that there was 
any one in the country except himself able to do the com- 
plex mathematical problems that the speeder entailed. 
Later, to overcome the great waste and expense in winding 
the thread for filling, or weft, from the bobbin on to the quills 
for the shuttle, Mr. Moody worked out the filling throstle. 

The wooden rollers used in the first construction of the 
dressing frame had so swollen and warped, owing to the 
wool being constantly wet, that the rolls would not fit 
accurately, and the rollers were covered with metal by 
casting a coating of pewter on the outside, but these were 
also found impractical, owing to the difficulty of casting 
them. Moody at last thought of making a mould of soap- 
stone in which to cast them, and his brother, to whom he 
told his trouble, said that he thought soapstone would 
make a very good roller, and Moody tried it and found it 
worked perfectly. All of which shows how much American 
textile manufacturers owe to Lowell and Moody, for most 
of their machines with improvements are in use to-day. 

In Mr. Lowell's search for the best machines, accompanied 
by Mr. Moody, he visited a machinist named Shepard, of 



196 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Taunton, who had a patent for winding machines which 
were thought to be the best on the market, but Shepard 
refused to reduce his price, even though Mr. Lowell used 
them on a large scale. 

"You must have them, you cannot do without them, as 
you know, Mr. Moody." 

"I was just thinking that I can spin the caps direct upon 
the bobbins," said Mr. Moody. 

"You be hanged!" said Mr. Shepard. "Well, I will 
accept your offer." 

"No, it's too late," interposed Mr. Lowell, and he with- 
drew the offer, deciding to spin the caps upon the bobbins. 

The Waltham enterprise was a success from the start, 
and the needs soon required raising the full capital, four 
hundred thousand dollars, and the addition of two hundred 
thousand dollars for buying a place below Watertown. 



CARE OF EMPLOYEES 

Under Mr. Jackson's management much attention was 
given to the physical and moral care of the employees. 
Payment of regular wages at stated intervals was begun 
at the outset, and boarding-houses, at the head of which 
matrons of good character were placed, were built at the 
expense of the company. No boarders were taken except 
operatives, and the careful regulation of these boarding- 
houses so gained the confidence of the surrounding popula- 
tion that parents were not afraid to trust their daughters 
to work in the factory. Pains were also taken to have as 
agents and overseers men of character, so that the class of 
help was of the best, and that aided much in the production 
of good fabrics. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 197 



SALE OF GOODS 

At first the goods did not sell very rapidly, but, as there 
was but one loom, they did not accumulate fast. At the 
outset they were sold at a shop on Cornhill, Boston, kept 
by the wife of Isaac Bowers, who had the only place in 
Boston where domestic goods were sold. Mr. Lowell and 
Mr. Appleton had a talk with Mrs. Bowers, who said that, 
although every one praised the goods and none objected 
to the price, yet they did not sell. Mr. Appleton, who 
after the peace of 1815 had entered into partnership with 
Benjamin C. Ward to import British goods, suggested that 
Mr. Lowell send the next batch of goods to the store of B. C. 
Ward & Co., and he would see what could be done. The 
goods then made at Waltham were heavy sheetings of 
No. 14 yarn, 37 inches wide, 44 picks to the inch, and ran 
about three yards to the pound, the purpose being to imi- 
tate the unbleached yard-wide goods of India, which then 
crowded the market. Ward & Co. found a purchaser 
in Mr. Forsaith, an auctioneer, who sold the product at a 
little over thirty cents per yard, although Mr. Lowell had 
said he would be satisfied with twenty-five cents. The 
goods continued to sell at little variation in price. 

These circumstances led to Ward & Co. becoming the 
permanent selling agents of the company, and this was the 
beginning of the very successful system of merchandising 
so generally employed to-day. 

While the War of 1812 had a marked effect on stimu- 
lating the production of American textiles, its conclusion, 
owing to the influx of foreign goods which were sold almost 
at cost, was ruinous to the industry, especially as the power 
loom was not in use save in Waltham. Protection was 
sought from Congress, which in 1816, under the influence 
of Mr. Lowell who went to Washington, passed a duty of 
6j cents per square yard. 

While the tariff was under discussion, Mr. Lowell visited 



198 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Pawtucket, and found all the spindles idle and the manu- 
facturers despondent. They told him they had been so 
busy turning out goods at a high profit during the war 
that they had given no thought to improving the machin- 
ery, considering only how quickly the goods could be made. 
Mr. Lowell informed them that the power loom would put 
a new face on the situation, but the mill owners were at 
first incredulous, though they soon came to his opinion and 
began installing the looms. Mr. Lowell was also the first 
person systematically to arrange the processes of manu- 
facturing in a mill so that no labor would be lost in passing 
from one process to another, and few changes have been 
made in these arrangements since he first established 
them. 

To his fertile brain the industry owes the mill organiza- 
tion of the present day, with a president as chairman of the 
board of directors and the treasurer as the executive head, 
with the responsibility of buying the raw material and 
through the selling house disposing of the finished product, 
which he initiated in the Waltham mills. The subdivisions 
of the departments of the mill under overseers, supervised 
by a superintendent who had charge of the help and their 
operations, while a master machinist had charge of the 
buildings and the machinery, both reporting to the agent 
for the proprietors, whose functions were those of general 
manager, is the type of organization which Lowell insti- 
tuted, and which has continued to-day as the best method 
of operating a textile mill and selling its products. 

WALTHAM versus RHODE ISLAND SYSTEM OP MANUFACTURING 

As mule spinning had already been introduced in Rhode 
Island, the power loom and other machinery of WUliam 
Gilmore, who, we have learned, perfected the loom which 
the Lyman Cotton Manufactory had adopted at Providence, 
completed the Rhode Island manufacturing system, so 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 199 

that within three years of the operation of the power loom 
at Waltham, Rhode Island was also performing all its 
processes by machinery. But the improvements at Wal- 
tham having been patented and their use held at a high 
price, most of the mills built in Rhode Island adopted the 
crank loom, and instead of the patented speeder used the 
tube speeder invented by Danforth. As many of the mills 
in Massachusetts and New Hampshire adopted the Wal- 
tham machinery, two methods or systems of manufacturing 
sprang up, one called the Waltham and the other the 
Rhode Island system. In one the live spindle is used, in 
the other the dead spindle; one uses the mule for filling, 
the other the filling frame; in one case the crank loom is 
employed, while in the other it is the cam loom. One uses 
the Scotch dresser, the other the Waltham dresser, and 
many manufacturers are still undecided which is the best. 
Mule spinning was not introduced into the Waltham sys- 
tem until after 1830. The crank loom, however, came into 
use in Waltham about ten years after the crank loom had 
been installed in Rhode Island. The great difference which 
existed between the two systems of machinery was that 
that installed at Waltham was the work of ingenious mer- 
chants, who, having little knowledge of practical manu- 
facturing, were guided more by the facility of making the 
machine than by its fitness for the use intended; while the 
system adopted in Rhode Island was adapted to its pur- 
pose by the practical knowledge gained in English fac- 
tories. 

Besides this difference in machinery there was a striking 
divergence in the method of treating the employees. In 
Slater's mills, which set the pattern for Rhode Island, the 
English plan of employing whole families, including chil- 
dren who were very young, was adopted, and it led to the 
bringing of families into the industrial centres that were 
wholly dependent upon the mills and that suffered severely 
when there was no work. Payments, too, were made in 



200 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

goods supplied at a factory store instead of the cash method 
followed at Waltham. At Waltham wages were paid every 
week or two weeks, and boarding-houses in charge of a 
matron were provided for the employees, the conditions of 
which precluded the work of children or militated against 
the employment of whole families. 



THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY OF LOWELL AND THE START- 
ING OF THE MERRIMAC MANUFACTURING COMPANY 

Although the cotton industry suffered from a marked 
depression from 1817-20, owing to the effect of the War 
of 1812, the factories at Waltham during this period had 
been uniformly successful, paying a dividend of 12 per 
cent, annually. The success of the Waltham enterprise 
caused Lowell, Jackson, and Appleton to turn their at- 
tention to establishing another mill at a place where there 
would be greater water facilities, and as early as 1820 they 
began inquiries for a suitable site. 

The falls of the Souhegan River near its junction with 
the Merrimac were first examined, but it was decided the 
power would not do. A few days later Paul Moody ac- 
companied his wife to Bradford to visit a daughter who 
was at school there and incidentally to meet some gentle- 
men and to examine the water power. It happened to 
rain, and the gentlemen did not appear, so Moody rode on 
to Amesbury, where he met Ezra Worthen, a mechanic 
who worked with him at Waltham. 

"Why don't you go to the Pawtucket Falls?" said 
Worthen, when told what Moody was searching for. 
"There is a power there worth ten times as much as you 
will find anywhere." 

Accompanied by Worthen, Moody went to Chelmsford 
and saw the Pawtucket Falls, where Lowell now is, and 
reported to Jackson and the others that the falls at Paw- 
tucket would give the whole power of the Merrimac with 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 201 

a fall of over thirty feet. Jackson and Kirk Boott, an 
Englishman who had consented to take the management of 
the projected enterprise, examined the site, and, deciding 
that it was advantageous, steps were quickly taken to 
secure the stock of the canal and to obtain sufficient land 
to control the water power. Boott had long been familiar 
with the territory, as he was in the habit of hunting over it, 
and he and Thomas M. Clark, agent of the Canal Com- 
pany at Newburyport, were empowered to buy property. 

The territory of Lowell comprised in 1821 about four 
square miles and had fifteen hundred inhabitants, mainly 
farmers, who lived by cultivation of the rough fields and by 
fishing the Concord and the Merrimac, which meet here in 
the towns of Chelmsford and Dracut; and from its situa- 
tion at the junction of the two rivers the site was originally 
called Chelmsford Neck, or, by the Indians, Wamaset. 
Clark and Boott succeeded in acquiring about four hundred 
acres at about a hundred dollars per acre, acquiring for 
about forty thousand dollars land which sold later for a 
dollar per square foot. 

It is said that Boott represented to the farmers that he 
wanted to raise wool and fruit, and, when they learned how 
they had sold valuable mill privileges for a song, their rage 
was furious, and found expression in a song which everybody 
sang: — 

"There came a young man from the old countree. 
The Merrimac River he happened to see. 
*What a capital place for mills!' quoth he, 
Ri-toot, ri-toot, ri-toot." 

Another verse related how Boott persuaded the shrewd 
Yankee farmers to sell their water power for nothing, and 
it continued, — 

"And then these farmers so cute 
They gave all their lands and their timbers to Boott, 
Ri-toot, ri-toot, ri-toot." 



202 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Boott was of strong English leaning, and on one Fourth 
of July raised the English flag above the stars and stripes 
and would not take it down. A mob gathered, and pulled 
it down. He was born in Boston in 1791, had studied at 
Rugby, England, and for a time was a student at Harvard. 
He served as an officer in the English army in the Penin- 
sula campaign under Wellington, and at the siege of San 
Sebastian in 1813 he commanded with great bravery a 
detachment of troops. After his resignation from the army 
in 1817, he returned to Boston, where he engaged in business, 
spending much of his spare time shooting and fishing in the 
towns of Chelmsford and Dracut. 

Boott's part in the establishment of the Lowell mills 
aroused the anger of English manufacturers, and this enmity 
went so far, it was reported, that emissaries were sent from 
England to take his life and attempts were made to kill 
him. 

The Pawtucket Canal Company, the stock of which he 
and Clark were empowered to buy, had been incorporated 
in 1792 under the name of "The Proprietors of the Locks 
and Canals on Merrimac River'* for the purpose of making 
the Merrimac River navigable to Newburyport. The 
construction in 1793 of the Middlesex Canal, however, 
which opened communication with Boston, was a barrier 
to the commercial success of the canal to Newburyport, so 
that the proprietors built only a small canal for the passage 
of wood and lumber around Pawtucket Falls. As the in- 
come to the original proprietors from the canal up to 1820 
had hardly averaged 3^^ per cent, a year, it was easy for 
Messrs. Boott, Appleton, Jackson, and the others to pur- 
chase the six hundred shares which represented a paid in 
capital of sixty thousand dollars. 

Patrick T. Jackson, Kirk Boott, Warren Dutton, Paul 
Moody, John W. Boott, and Nathan Appleton made their 
first visit to the property November, 1821, during a snow- 
storm. One of the company remarked that they might 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 203 

live to see the bleak, barren place which then had less than 
a dozen houses have a population of twenty thousand 
people. Articles of association were drawn up under the 
name of the Merrimac Manufacturing Company, Dec. 1, 
1821, with a capital stock of six hundred shares, and Kirk 
Boott was appointed the treasurer and agent of the com- 
pany at a salary of three thousand dollars. He was also 
authorized to buy the remainder of the canal stock, and the 
Merrimac Company took over from him such interest in the 
Canal Company as was deemed for their advantage to own. 

The Merrimac Manufacturing Company was granted 
incorporation by the legislature, Feb. 5, 1822, and the fol- 
lowing directors were chosen, who ordered an assessment of 
five hundred dollars per share: Warren Dutton, Patrick T. 
Jackson, Nathan Appleton, Israel Thorndyke, Jr., John W. 
Boott; and Kirk Boott was made treasurer and clerk, while 
Warren Dutton was elected president. The original share- 
holders were as follows: P. T. Jackson, 180 shares; N. 
Appleton, 180 shares; John W. Boott, 90 shares; Kirk 
Boott, 90 shares; Paul Moody, 60 shares. And later it 
was voted to permit the following to subscribe: Dudley 
Tyng, 5 shares; Warren Dutton, 10 shares; Timothy 
Wiggin, 25 shares; William Appleton, 25 shares; Eben 
Appleton, 15 shares; Thomas M. Clark, 2 shares; D. 
Webster, 4 shares; Benjamin Gorham, 5 shares; Nathaniel 
Bowditch, 4 shares; and the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany, 150 shares. D. Webster was Daniel Webster, who 
is said to have never paid for his shares, and they were sub- 
sequently sold to some one else. 

The shares in the Locks and Canals Company were paid 
to the several directors in trust, and a committee appointed, 
consisting of Patrick T. Jackson and Nathan Appleton, 
to settle Mr. Boott's account for $18,399, which he had 
spent to secure for his associates the farm lands of Nathan 
Tyler, Josiah Fletcher, and $30,217, paid for three hun- 
dred and thirty-nine shares in the Locks and Canals Com- 



204 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

pany. The new proprietors of the Locks and Canals 
Company at once enlarged the canal to sixty feet wide and 
eight feet deep, at a cost of a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand dollars. Collateral canals were subsequently built, 
and a contract made with the Boston Manufacturing Com- 
pany for machinery for two mills. 

Finally, in August, 1823, the projectors of the Merrimac 
Manufacturing Company, who now also owned the Locks 
and Canals, paid the Waltham Company seventy-five thou- 
sand dollars for all their patterns and patent rights, and 
also for the release of the services of Mr. Paul Moody, who 
had been under contract to work for the Waltham Com- 
pany. The mills of the Merrimac Company were placed 
where they could use the whole thirty-feet fall of the Merri- 
mac, and the wheels were first started on Sept. 1, 1823, 
while the first dividend of a hundred dollars per share was 
paid in 1825. The first cloth made was so coarse in text- 
ure peas could be shot through it, and it cost 373^ cents 
per yard. 

The proprietors of the Locks and Canals erected a large 
brick machine shop and commenced the building of mill 
machinery. They soon undertook the complete construc- 
tion of mills and the installation of machinery, selling land 
and water privileges to manufacturing companies, digging 
the necessary canals, erecting the mills, building and in- 
stalling the machinery, and turning the whole over to the 
manufacturing company that had been formed. Enormous 
profits were made on the original cost of the land, and hand- 
some profits were derived, not only from the construction 
of the plants, but also from the sale of the water privileges. 
Kirk Boott was the original agent of the Locks and Canals 
Company, as well as that of the Merrimac Manufacturing 
Company. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 205 

NAMING OF LOWELL 

Such was the beginning of Lowell, which took its name 
from Francis C. Lowell, the originator of the first complete 
cotton mill in the world. Some difficulty was experienced 
in determining a suitable name for the new manufacturing 
town, and one day Mr. Nathan Appleton met Mr. Kirk 
Boott, who remarked to Mr. Appleton that the legislative 
committee was ready to report on the bill incorporating 
the town, and it only remained to fill the blank with the 
name. 

"I consider the question narrowed down to two, Lowell 
or Derby," said Mr. Boott. Derby was suggested by 
Mr. Boott because of his family associations with that 
place, and also because it was in the vicinity of one of the 
earliest seats of English cotton manufacture. 

"Then Lowell, by all means," replied Mr. Appleton, who 
considered the honor due Mr. Francis C. Lowell. 

It was incorporated in 1824 into a town distinct from 
Chelmsford, of which it had formed a part. Lowell became 
a city in 1836. Its population in 1830 was 6,477; ac- 
cording to the census of 1910, it was 106,294. 

The first cloth made by the Merrimac Manufacturing 
Company was gray, as the business of printing calico was 
entirely new in this country. Various methods had been 
used in experimenting in the printing of calico. The en- 
graving of the cylinder, which had superseded the old method 
of printing by blocks of wood, had come into use in England, 
but knowledge of it was closely guarded from the public. 
Attempts at making copper printing cylinders at Lowell 
were unsuccessful, and engraved cylinders were imported 
from England. Finally, Mr. Boott went to England solely 
for the purpose of securing engravers. Through the efforts 
of the chemist Dr. Samuel L. Dana and John D. Prince, 
of Manchester, the task of engraving was finally accom- 
plished, and the first calico printed had a width of twenty- 



206 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

seven inches, which was two inches above the average of 
British prints. Only fast colors were used, and this, to- 
gether with the greater durability secured from the use of 
the throstle in place of the mule spinning, combined to make 
the goods better than any others. 

The first prints were poor in texture and color. The 
ground was a madder, and it had a white spot. As described 
by Mrs. Robinson, who wrote "Loom and Spindle," and, 
as a girl, worked in these early mills, "it proved a garb of 
humiliation, for the white spots washed out, cloth and all, 
leaving me covered with eyelet holes." 

The calico printers who were brought over from England 
became dissatisfied with their terms, and left town, with 
their families, in a large wagon, with a band of music. 
New terms had to be made before they would return. The 
first enduring color printed was indigo blue. 

Boarding-houses for operatives were early established 
by the mill corporations at Lowell, and these houses were 
strictly supervised. The dietary provided for fresh meat 
at least twice a week, and that they should not be obliged 
to eat fresh salmon more than once a week. It was further 
provided that a bed should be kept empty for a certain 
number of the occupants, so there would be a place for any 
one who might be taken ill. A report of illness was sent 
at once to the mill agent, so that, as it was before the days 
of hospitals in New England, skilled medical attendance 
could be provided. The boarding-houses, as well as the 
mills, were supplied from elevated tanks with running water. 
The place of these tanks was later taken by a special reser- 
voir, which antedated the introduction of municipal water 
works. The paved brick sidewalks with granite crossings 
that were provided from the boarding-houses to the mill 
doors were probably the first continuous walks of their 
kind in New England. 

The condition of the early employees of Lowell is thus 
described by Mr. Shirreff, an English farmer, who came 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 207 

to America to learn if it would be best to allow a younger 
brother to emigrate: — 

"Females engaged in manufacturing amount to nearly 
5,000, and as we arrived at Lowell on the afternoon 
of Saturday we had an opportunity of seeing those con- 
nected with some of the largest cotton manufactories re- 
turning from labor. All were clean, neat and fashionably 
attired with reticules hanging from their arms, and calashes 
on their heads. They commonly walked arm and arm 
without levity. The general appearance and deportment 
were such that few British gentlemen in the middle ranks 
of life need have been ashamed of leading any of them to a 
tea party. Next day being Sunday, we saw the young 
females belonging to the factory going to church in their 
best attire, when the favorable impressions of the preceding 
evening were not effaced. They lodged generally in board- 
ing houses, and earn eight shillings six pence sterling per 
week independent of board. Sewing girls earn about four 
shillings six pence. The recent introduction of large man- 
ufacturing establishments and this population account 
for the comfort and prosperity of the Lowell young women." 

Dickens, in his "American Notes," describes a visit made 
to several of the factories at Lowell in 1842, such as a woolen 
factory, a cotton factory, and a carpet factory, and says 
that he reached the first factory as the girls were returning 
from lunch to their work, gave his comments upon their 
neat, well-dressed appearance, and their extreme cleanli- 
ness, and he noted, too, their healthy appearance and ad- 
mirable manners and deportment. He learned there was 
as much fresh air and comfort as the nature of the occupa- 
tion would permit, and declared that in all the crowd he 
saw in the factories on the day of his visit he could not 
recall one young face that gave him a painful impression, 
nor one young girl whom he would have removed from 
the works, had he had the power. 

Dickens found a few children employed in these factories, 



208 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

but not many, and even at this early date Massachusetts 
forbade their working more than nine months during the 
year. He also praised the boarding-houses, and speaks of 
there being a joint stock piano in many of them. He 
comments also on the girls subscribing to circulating 
libraries, and mentions the Lowell Offering, a repository 
of original articles written exclusively by women employed 
in the mills. In short, Dickens regarded the industrial 
conditions at Lowell as not only superior to those with 
which he was familiar in England, but quite above 
criticism. 

Hurd's History of Middlesex County quotes Daniel 
Ejiapp as giving this account of the way cotton was cleaned: 
"In the spring of 1814 my parents were young laboring 
people, with five small children, the oldest not over eleven 
years old. We had the cotton brought to our house by the 
bale to pick to pieces and get out the seeds and dirt. We 
children had to pick so many pounds per day as a stint. 
We had a whipping machine made four feet square, and 
about three feet from the floor was a bedcord running across 
from knob to knob near together, on which we put a parcel 
of cotton, and with two whip sticks we tightened it up 
and got out the dirt and made it ready for the card. My 
mother was carrying on the bleaching business at the time. 
There was no chemical process. The bright sun, drying 
up the water, did its bleaching. This was the mode of 
bleaching at this time." 

STARTING OF FIRST MILLS 

The first sale made by the Locks and Canals Company 
after its reorganization by the promoters of the Merrimac 
Manufacturing Company was to the Hamilton Manufact- 
uring Company in 1825, which started with a capital of six 
hundred thousand dollars. The mill made twilled and fancy 
goods, and the first cotton mill drill which played such a 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 209 

part in the trade with the East was made in this mill. The 
Appleton Company and the Lowell Company were started 
in 1828, and the Suffolk, Tremont, and Lawrence Compa- 
nies began work in 1830 through the efforts of Amos and 
Abbott Lawrence, to whom the Locks and Canals Com- 
pany gave reduced terms because of the stringent business 
conditions of 1829. 

The Boott Company began operations in 1835, and the 
Massachusetts Company in 1839. Further improvements 
in the construction of a canal along the bank of the river 
and the rights to control the outlets of Winnepesaukee 
were established. Then, too, changes in the water power 
rights were effected, by which the corporations instead of 
being lessees of the water power became part proprietors, 
and from then on Lowell's development was continuous 
and rapid. In 1911 there were 871,900 spindles, 20,303 
looms, and $12,900,000 capital engaged in the textile busi- 
ness in Lowell. 



CHAPTER IX 

OTHER TEXTILE CENTRES 

PHILADELPHIA THE GREATEST TEXTILE-PRODUCING CITY OP 
AMERICA — SILK INDUSTRY IN PHILADELPHIA — DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE WOOLEN INDUSTRY — TEXTILE MACHINERY — CARPET IN- 
DUSTRY LATER GROWTH FOUNDATION OP LAWRENCE — BE- 
GINNING OP FALL RIVER COLONEL DURFEE's MILL — THE TROY 

AND FALL RIVER MILLS — EARLY LOOMS, WORK, AND WAGES 

OTHER COMPANIES — PROVIDENCE — PATERSON, N.J. — NEW BED- 
FORD — MANCHESTER — ^AMOSKEAG LAYS OUT A TOWN — NEW 
YORK — ^AMSTERDAM — ^WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CONCLUSION. 

The first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the 
firm establishment on a manufacturing basis of the textile 
industry in America, and the history of this development 
is that of the great textile centres, where, owing to either 
natural advantages or the enterprise of far-sighted mer- 
chants, the industry was planted and flourished. These 
centres in the order of the value of their production are 
Philadelphia, Lawrence, Fall River, New York, Paterson, 
New Bedford, Lowell, Providence, Manchester, Pawtucket, 
Woonsocket, and Amsterdam. Much of the story of some 
of these cities has already been told in previous chapters. 
To complete it, however, some further facts must be given 
about the growth of the industry in these cities. 

To-day Philadelphia is the greatest manufacturing city 
of woolen hosiery and knit goods and carpets. New York 
the greatest centre for the cutting up trade or manufacturing 
clothier, while Fall River leads as a cotton-producing centre. 
New Bedford as the greatest producer of fine cotton goods. 
Lawrence is the greatest centre in the United States for 
worsted goods, and Paterson the great silk centre. Phil- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 211 

adelphia's manufacture of textiles exceeds $153,000,000 
annually, while that of the next two largest textile cities, 
Lawrence and Fall River, aggregates only $126,000,000. 
Considering Lawrence, Fall River, Lowell, and New Bed- 
ford as cities of Boston's environment, the output of 
"Greater Boston" is $211,000,000. 

According to the United States Census the textiles in- 
clude carpets, cordage, jute, linen goods, nets and seines, 
cotton goods, including cotton small wares, dyeing and 
finishing, hosiery and knit goods, shoddy, silk manufactures, 
woolen and worsted manufactures, wool pulling, wool 
scouring, felt goods, wool hats and fur felt hats. 

The production of the twelve leading textile cities of the 
United States, according to the 1909 census, was : Philadel- 
phia, Pa., $153,000,000; Lawrence, Mass., $70,000,000; Fall 
River, Mass., $56,000,000; New York, N.Y., $52,000,000; 
Paterson, N.J., $50,000,000; New Bedford, Mass., $44,- 
000,000; Lowell, Mass., $41,000,000; Providence, R.I., 
$37,000,000; Manchester, N.H., $23,000,000; Pawtucket, 
R.I., $23,000,000; Woonsocket, R.I., $20,000,000; Am- 
sterdam, N.Y., $17,000,000. 

The total value of the output of the textile industries 
of the United States in 1909 was $1,684,636,500, or $200,- 
000,000 more than all of Great Britain and Ireland. Phila- 
delphia produced nearly one-tenth of all the textiles of the 
United States, or more than any other two cities com- 
bined, and the value of the textile product exceeds that 
of any other city of the world. 

The earliest efforts at textile making in Philadelphia 
began soon after 1682, when the city's manufactures of 
coarse woolens excited the jealousy of England and led to 
prohibitive legislation. The proficiency was no doubt due 
to the premiums for the production of cloth offered by the 
proprietors of the province, one of the first being awarded 
Abraham Opdengrafe in 1686 for a piece of linen, and soon 
after Wigert Levering, a Germantown settler, is mentioned 



212 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

as a weaver by trade. The first manufacturers of hosiery 
were those of the sect known as Mennonites, who about this 
time had set up in their homes in Germantown the stocking 
frames they brought from Germany, and thus started the 
industry for which Germantown was to become famous. 

Wool was being made into druggets, serges, and camlets 
in 1698, and among the trades mentioned are dyers, fullers, 
comb makers, card makers, weavers, and spinners. Wool 
combers and carders received twelvepence per pound, and 
journeyman tailors twelve shillings per week and their diet. 
Charles Blackman, who enjoyed the governor's favor, was the 
first tailor mentioned. An evidence that the industry was 
already well established is the fact that Charles Lawrence, 
who had come from Carolina, offered for sale in 1721, at 
his place of business on Chestnut Street, "Very good sleys, 
tombles, and shuttles for weavers." John Cam, who had 
emigrated from Ireland, was spoken of in 1723 as a stocking 
weaver, as was also Alexander Mack, Jr., son of the founder 
of the religious sect known as "Dunkers," and Germantown 
had thus early become the headquarters in America of the 
hand stocking weavers, one hundred Germantown hosiers 
being referred to in 1777 as out of work. 

The first knitting mill in America was started in 1825 by 
Thomas R. Fisher in Germantown, and it was known as 
the Wakefield Mill. Previous to this each man had worked 
his own frame in his own house, but Fisher persuaded a 
number of knitters to operate their machines under one 
roof. He offered to buy the frames; but, as the knitters 
refused to sell, he imported frames from England, and 
knitters too, and was soon able to operate his own frames 
with his own workmen. Already numbers of knitters from 
Leicester and Nottingham had settled in Germantown, and 
little by little the knitting industry grew imtil it took the 
leading position it now holds. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 213 

SILK INDUSTRY IN PHILADELPHIA 

Influenced by the strenuous efforts made by the mother 
country to establish the silk industry in her colonies, Phil- 
adelphia turned her attention to the silk industry about 
1750, and offered premiums for the growth of the silkworm 
as well as opened a filature. A London paper under date 
of Nov. 7, 1765, states that one hundred silk throwsters 
had started for New York and Philadelphia. Benjamin 
Franklin in 1769 influenced his adopted city to open another 
filature, and in 1771 twenty-three hundred pounds of cocoons 
were bought and reeled by a society formed to promote the 
industry. 

Dresses of domestic silk were made and worn before the 
Revolution, some of which have been handed down as heir- 
looms to the present. But the Revolution terminated the 
industry, and it was not resumed until 1815, when W. H. 
Horstmann came from Cassel, Germany, and, having learned 
the art of silk weaving in France, established himself in 
Philadelphia as a silk manufacturer. He was the first to 
use the Jacquard loom in America, introducing it in 1824, 
and also inventing a number of machines used in different 
branches of the silk manufacture. His son, William J. 
Horstmann, in 1837-38 made power looms from his own 
design and introduced power loom weaving for narrow 
fabrics. Silk manufacturing in Philadelphia has since 
grown until in 1910 there were seventy-seven firms making 
silk goods of various kinds in Philadelphia. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WOOLEN INDUSTRY 

The woolen and flax homespun industry started in Phila- 
delphia, as it did in the other colonial cities, immediately 
after the town's settlement, and little by little grew as the 
needs of the people required fabrics. 

In 1760 there were twelve fulling mills in Philadelphia, 



214 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

and in 1765 a number of citizens and butchers agreed not 
to eat or kill sheep under twelve months old for a period 
of two years. About the time the Stamp Act was repealed 
in 1766, Daniel Mause, a hosier, had set up a number of 
looms at the sign of the "Hand in Hand" Stocking Manu- 
factory on the west side of Second Street, between Race 
and Vine Streets, where he made thread and stockings, and 
"hoped the good people of his and neighboring provinces 
would encourage the undertaking." 

But so little had manufacturing grown in Philadelphia 
by 1767 that John Penn, in a letter to the Lord Commis- 
sioner for Trade and Plantation, on January 21 of that year 
said that very little encouragement was given manufacturing, 
and he only knew of two industries. One had been started 
three years ago by private subscription for making sail 
cloth, ticking, and linens, but the persons interested had 
not carried it on, but sank their money and discontinued 
the project, as the high price of labor made it impossible 
to compete with English goods. The other was a glass 
manufactory, which was started seventy miles from Phila- 
delphia, in Lancaster County, to supply the demands of 
the villagers and small farmers in the neighborhood. 

The approach of the Revolution, the growing needs 
of the colonists, and the time and expense it took to obtain 
goods from England led Philadelphia, as well as other 
colonial centres, to consider the question of home manu- 
factures, and, when the convention of delegates from the 
Pennsylvania provinces was held in 1775, various newspaper 
writers recommended the establishment of woolen manu- 
factures. One writer, who signed himself "Hibernian," 
proposed the formation of a patriotic society to manufacture 
woolen with a permit to raise one thousand pounds by 
lottery. Weavers, he wrote, could be had from Ireland. 
The expense of importing twenty-nine workmen with yarn 
and worsted, wheels, reels, looms, steel, three-pitched 
combs, a press, and bedding for the twenty-nine hands, was 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 215 

estimated at five hundred and fifty pounds. Six thousand 
pounds of yarn could be bought for four hundred and fifty 
pounds, but the profits of manufacture were not calculated. 

The first joint stock company in the United States was 
organized in 1775 in Philadelphia to make cotton goods, 
and was known as the United Company of Philadelphia 
for Promoting American Manufacturing. It was the pro- 
genitor of the American Manufactory, the earliest cotton 
and woolen manufactory in America. Samuel Wetherill, 
Jr., who was instrumental in the formation of the manufac- 
tory, had in 1775, on South Alley, a factory for woolens that 
supplied the Revolutionary army, and, when the price of 
wool rose so high that he could not avoid loss, he notified 
the Board of War that he would be unable to fill his 
contract. 

The colonial government of Pennsylvania encouraged 
home industries by offering medals and money for the best 
cloth; and John Hague in 1778 received one hundred 
pounds for introducing machines for carding cotton. The 
same year John Hewson, the first calico printer, sought 
financial support from the Assembly, as did also Edward 
Clegg, of Great Britain, who was about to establish a mill 
for corduroys and jeans. By 1784 fulling mills were very 
numerous in Philadelphia, and by 1810 three woolen mills 
had been established in Philadelphia, and one in German- 
town. 

TEXTILE MACHINERY 

Philadelphia has long been a centre for textile machinery. 
As early as 1777 Oliver Evans made teeth for cards by a 
machine of his own invention, which turned them out at 
the rate of fifteen hundred per minute. When the State 
rejected his proposal to erect a factory under State patron- 
age, he disclosed his secret to individuals, and soon many 
were making cards. In 1788 Giles Richards & Co. began 
making them with machines. F. G. Richards, Amos 



216 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Whittemore, and Mark Richards turned out about twelve 
thousand annually. 

From 1792 to 1794 a number of carding machines were 
made, and efforts exerted to build spinning frames on Ark- 
wright's principle. At the Globe Mills, to which we have 
already referred, several mules of one hundred and twenty 
spindles were installed. 

The first regular machinery for cotton manufacturing 
was established at Holmesburg in 1810 by Alfred Jenks, 
who had learned all he knew from Slater. In 1830 Jenks 
invented the power loom for weaving checks. 

Little by little the industry became well established, 
and different societies were formed to stimulate it. The 
Philadelphia Premium Society, organized in 1801, did much 
to foster the industry by giving premiums for improvements 
in art and manufacture, and no longer did Penn's statement 
about the lack of manufacturing apply to Philadelphia. 

Fairs and sales were held, one of the first sales being in 
1789, under the auspices of the manufacturing committee 
of the Pennsylvania Society, when printed cottons, cor- 
duroys, federal ribs, jean, flax, and tow linens were offered. 
According to John Mellish, who wrote a description of his 
travels in America in 1806-07 and 1809-11, the manufact- 
ures of Philadelphia were rising into great importance, 
hats, stockings, and a great variety of cloth were being made, 
and an export trade had begun. 

CARPET INDUSTRY 

The carpet industry, for which Philadelphia has long 
been noted, began before the Revolution and gradually 
became a prominent industry. The first manufacturer 
mentioned was William Calverly, of Loxley's Court, whose 
carpets in 1774 were thought to be superior to those im- 
ported, and were shown as such at the Coffee House. Turk- 
ish and Axminster carpets were first made by William 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 217 

Peter Sprague in 1791 in Northern Liberty. He wove 
a national pattern with device representing the crest 
and armorial achievements of the United States. Phila- 
delphia floor cloths, oil cloths, and carpets began to attract 
wide attention soon after 1800. John Dorsey, a mer- 
chant, with two looms commenced making floor carpets and 
oil cloths in 1807 on Chestnut Street, and he wove a sail 
duck seven yards in width. One man could turn out thirty- 
two or forty-five yards of carpet a day, which sold for from 
$1.50 to $2.25 per yard, depending upon the colors used. 
Another factory was established by Isaac Macauley at 
Market Street in 1808, where he made oil cloths in one, 
two, three, and four colors. He bought out Dorsey in 1810, 
and began manufacturing on a wider scale. Setting up 
carpet looms and importing workmen from Kidderminster, 
England, he spun his own yarn and wove canvas twenty- 
one feet wide for oil cloth, as well as the first Brussels carpet 
in America. 

In 1811 Philadelphia had 273 looms, 3,648 spinning wheels, 
186 looms and fly shuttles, 4,423 spindles in factories, 
165 stocking looms in hosiery factories, 8 print works, 4 
print cutting establishments. The population of the city 
was in 1810 111,210, and the total value of all manufactures 
was $16,103,389. 

LATER GROWTH 

The close of the war with Great Britain in 1815 brought 
such an influx of English goods that the domestic industries 
were threatened with extinction, and Thomas Gilpin and 
other Philadelphia manufacturers protested to the govern- 
ment against the ad valorem rate of duty, which led to 
false valuation, and asked for specific duties in hope of sav- 
ing the home industry; but the introduction of the power 
loom did more than the tariff to save the struggling indus- 
try, and little by little it became prosperous again. There 
were in Philadelphia in 1815, 2,325 persons engaged in the 



218 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

cotton industry, and 1,226 in the woolen. By 1821 four 
thousand looms were at work. In 1827 the Frankford 
Woolen Mills were established, and in 1829 the Conestoga 
Print Works, by Thomas Hunter. Andrew and William 
McCallum, two Scotchmen, started their carpet manu- 
factory in 1830, and in 1831 the Germantown Hosiery Mills 
were started under the direction of John Button, whose 
father was a lace maker of Leicestershire, England. Button 
had at first but two small machines for knitting hosiery, 
which he had brought from England, and first made chil- 
dren's hose. As he was the only one who had this ma- 
chinery, for several years he had quite a monopoly, but later 
made adult hose as well. Germantown knit goods rapidly 
became famous, and mill after mill sprang up. 

The Oxford Carpet Mills were started in 1832 by William 
Hogg, and also the Hinckley Knitting Mills by Aaron 
Jones, who set up two old-fashioned knitting frames. The 
city and neighborhood in 1827 had 104 warping mills, 
4,500 weavers, over 200 dyers, 3,000 spoolers, and 2,000 
bobbin winders. The blue broadcloth known as Lafayette 
Blue, dyed in 1832 by F. Tassard with prussiate of potash, 
was the first use in America of Prussian blue. 

The Keystone Knitting Mills were started in May, 1861, 
by Thomas Dolan, who had been a commission merchant, 
and since then the development of Philadelphia has steadily 
grown. According to the last census the gross value of 
Philadelphia's textile products was $153,000,000. 

FOUNDATION OF LAWRENCE 

The history of the foundation and development of Law- 
rence bears close analogy to that of Lowell, save that one 
man instead of several conceived the enterprise and carried 
on the preliminary work necessary to its successful start. 

That man was Daniel Saunders, of Andover, Mass., who 
had become interested in the project by the merest accident. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 219 

He came by chance some time before 1835 into possession of 
a plan showing the grades and locks for a canal from Lowell 
to the tide-water on the Merrimac, and, studying it closely, 
concluded there was considerable aggregate fall of water 
between the two points, though apparently there was little 
individual fall in the few slight rapids. 

As Saunders had been engaged in the woolen business, he 
realized the value of the water power for mill work, and 
determined to investigate for himself. Accordingly, with 
a companion and equipped with only a straight edge and 
a spirit level he went over the falls between the two points, 
and discovered the great power hidden in the insignificant 
rapids. He kept the information from all but his im- 
mediate family, to whom he freely predicted the possibility 
of a great manufacturing city on the Merrimac in the towns 
of Methuen and Andover, and set about buying land suffi- 
cient to control the water power. In 1840 he began pur- 
chasing land at the head of Peters Falls, some distance above 
where the first mills were built, and also bought an island 
and some land lower down. Soon he had sufficient to con- 
trol Peters Falls, and thus the whole power of the river. 
He had enough land by 1843 to deem it safe to lay his plan 
before J. G. Abbott, John Nesmith, and Samuel Lawrence, 
all residents of Lowell, and they formed the Merrimac 
Water Power Association, with Daniel Saunders, Jr., Abbott 
Lawrence, Thomas Hopkinson, and Jonathan Tyler, of 
Lowell, and Nathaniel Stevens, of Andover, as the other 
stockholders. 

The company set about securing more land to protect 
their rights. Some adverse criticism of the scheme arose, 
and many of those sceptical of the success of the enterprise 
called the scheme "Saunders' Folly." It was proposed to 
call the new town Saunders, but Mr. Saunders objected, I 
suggesting that, as it was on the Merrimac and there was \ 
no town in Massachusetts by that name, it be called Mer- \ 
rimac, and so it was called until April 17, 1847, when it 



220 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

was incorporated as a town and took the name of Lawrence 
in honor of Abbott Lawrence, one of the subscribers to the 
enterprise. 

Saunders in eighteen months had bought up all the land 
needed save a few parcels, and controlled in all between 
three and four thousand acres. On March 20, 1845, Daniel 
Saunders, Samuel Lawrence, John Nesmith, and Edmund 
Bartlett received a charter as the Essex Company. 

In the privately printed Memoir of Abbott Lawrence, 
by H. A. Hill, it is said that on the day that the Massachu- 
setts legislature passed the bill incorporating the Essex 
Company, successor to the Merrimac Water Power 
Association, all of the incorporators, among them Mr. 
Abbott Lawrence, were at the State House, and as 
soon as the measure was signed started to North Andover 
by rail, and thence proceeded to the falls at Lawrence by 
carriages. 

The company consisted of Messrs. Abbott Lawrence, 
William Lawrence, Samuel Lawrence, Francis C. Lowell, 
John A. Lowell, George W. Lyman, Theodore Lyman, 
Nathan Appleton, Patrick T. Jackson, William Sturgis, 
John Nesmith, Jonathan Tyler, James B. Francis, and 
Charles S. Storrow, the engineer of the enterprise. 

Under the direction of Mr. Daniel Saunders a careful 
examination of the neighborhood was made and the various 
plans for harnessing the water power were discussed upon 
the spot. Subsequently the party sat down to dinner at the 
Merrimac House in Lowell. After dinner, steps were taken 
toward a permanent organization. 

Mr. Abbott Lawrence and Mr. John A. Lowell retired for 
a few minutes' consultation, and when they returned offered 
the Water Power Association for all of its rights and interest 
thirty thousand dollars over and above the reimbursement 
of all expenses previously incurred. It was also agreed to 
carry out all of the agreements of the Associates for the 
purchase of land to secure flowage rights and to head the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 221 

organization of the Essex Company by a large subscription 
of stock. 

The proposition was accepted, and the preliminaries were 
signed the same day, March 20, 1845. Mr. Lawrence was 
the first and largest subscriber to the Essex Company, tak- 
ing a thousand shares at a hundred dollars each, and was 
its first president. On April 16 stock to the amount of a 
million dollars was issued, with Abbott Lawrence, Nathan 
Appleton, Ignatius Sargent, and William Sturgis as direc- 
tors. Charles Storrow was made agent and chief engineer. 

A great dam was completed across the Merrimac Sept. 
19, 1848, canals were dug, and the town site was laid out, 
work being begun Aug. 1, 1845. 

The Washington Mill, built in 1846, was the first one com- 
pleted, and E. A. Bourne was chosen president. It started 
the next year, when it took the name Bay State Mills, 
woolen, worsted, and cotton goods being made. The Bay 
State shawls, first made in 1848, and the blue flannel coat- 
ings, first turned out in 1859, were widely known. A few 
months later the second mill, the Atlantic, was started, 
and the first cotton arrived Jan. 12, 1849, consigned to 
the Atlantic Cotton Mills, of which Mr. Lawrence was also 
president and one of the largest stockholders. 

The Pacific Mills, named from the Pacific Ocean, were 
incorporated in 1853, and at that time were the largest 
works of their kind in the world. Their original capital 
was $2,000,000. Mr. Abbott Lawrence was president. 
The mills in 1857 had to ask an extension of credit, and 
Mr. Lawrence contributed several hundred thousand of 
his personal fortune to save the enterprise, upon which 
one-third of the people of Lawrence were dependent. Since 
the struggles of these early days the Pacific Mills have 
been very successful, and their products are known over 
the world. Other mills have since sprung up, one of which, 
the Wood Worsted, which is owned by the American Woolen 
Company, is the largest worsted mill in the world. The 



222 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

population of Lawrence, which in 1845 was a few hundred, 
was 85,892 in 1910, and had 1,138,876 spindles in 1911. 
The Census Bureau reports that the value of its textile 
products is $70,000,000 annually. 



BEGINNING OF FALL RIVER 

The greatest cotton manufacturing centre of America 
is Fall River, Mass. In one hundred years the cotton in- 
dustry has transformed a high, rocky knoll on the shores of 
Mount Hope Bay, which was once the scene of many an 
Indian skirmish between King Philip's tribe and the Pequot 
and Narragansett Indians, from a town in 1800 of 2,535 
people into a city in 1910 of 119,205 which hums with the 
whir of 3,936,944 spindles and with the clatter of 93,904 
looms. Colonel Durfee's original mill when it started 
in 1811 contained not more than five hundred spindles. 

The great development of Fall River is due to the fact 
that the moist climate of the neighborhood makes it one of 
the few places in America where the textile industry has 
that degree of humidity so needed in the weaving of cotton 
goods, and also to the fact that the headlong plunges which 
the stream of water known as the Quequechan River, or 
"The Stream," takes here over its rocky bed on its way to 
mingle with the ocean, furnished the water power so essen- 
tial to the early mills. 

COLONEL durfee's MILL 

The influence of Samuel Slater, who had been so success- 
ful in introducing to America English methods of manu- 
facturing cotton, led Colonel Joseph Durf ee, a Revolutionary 
patriot who lived in Tiverton Village, to organize and con- 
struct in 1811, in what was then the village of Fall River, 
the Globe Mill, the first mill built there. Colonel Durfee 
had been a selectman of his town and had served in the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 223 

Revolution. When the British, who during the Revolu- 
tion held Newport, attempted to raid the territory of 
Globe Village, Durfee formed and led the home guard 
which repulsed them. At the time he organized the com- 
pany he was sixty-one years old, and owned much of the land 
where Fall River now is, and thus controlled the water power. 

The ownership of Durfee's mill was divided into 100 
shares, which he sold to his neighbors and friends as follows : 
Joseph Durfee, of Tiverton, 40; Seth Simons (carpenter), 
of Providence, 40; Nathan Chase, Tiverton, 5; Boulston 
Brayton, Tiverton, 3; William Durfee, Tiverton, 2; Ben- 
jamin Bray ton. Gray, 2; Elisha Fuller, Rehoboth, 1; Rob- 
ert Hazard, Rehoboth, 1; and Nathan Cole, Rehoboth, 6. 
His argument in inducing his friends to buy the stock was 
that "cotton cloth would darn much easier than linen and 
ought to be popular in the home.'* 

The original mill, a small one-story wooden building that 
stood on the north-east corner of Globe and South Main 
Streets, was burned, and later the old building now standing 
was erected. It is one hundred and twenty feet in length, 
thirty-two feet wide, with a projection on the west side 
about thirty-one feet by eight, and three stories in height. 
The original mill had a water wheel that was operated by 
the flow from the Globe ford which had been dammed, and 
contained only a few spinning frames, cards, and a calender, 
and had, as we have said, but five hundred spindles. 

The cotton was sent out to the farmers' families to be 
picked and cleaned, and then was spun by the mill. The 
spun roll was then again sent out to be woven, and the cloth 
was finished by the mill. It is not known how much of the 
machinery was driven by power, although the mill had a 
tub wheel which gave such uneven power, according to the 
flow of the water, that the threads were not only constantly 
breaking, but the machines often went so fast they fell 
apart. The workmen were inexperienced, the hours of work 
averaging about sixteen, the pay about $1.20 per day, and 



224 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the output was very crude. The finished goods were carted 
two miles to Fall River proper, whence they were shipped 
by schooner to Providence and the neighboring territory, 
where they were sold. 

In spite of Durfee's persistency in constantly trying new 
devices to improve the crude machinery which was contin- 
ually breaking, he was unable to make a success of the under- 
taking, and, although the mill was run by the residents of 
the little village until 1829, it was never a financial success, 
and Durfee died a poor man in 1843. 

From 1829 to 1839 the plant was operated as print works, 
being known from 1835 to 1839 as the Tiverton Print Works. 
After many vicissitudes the mill came into the hands of the 
present owner. The Globe Yarn and Laurel Lake Mills Com- 
pany, and is held by them because of the water power it con- 
trols. Many interesting mementos of the old mill are still in 
existence, such as time sheets that contain the names and pay 
of the old workmen. Among the names of the workers are 
those of the ancestors of some of the leading professional 
and business men of Fall River to-day. 

THE TROY AND FALL RIVER MILLS 

If Colonel Durfee's venture was not a success, he at least 
pointed to the direction of Fall River's real prosperity and 
led the way, for in 1813 other residents of Fall River followed 
the path which he had blazed. In this year two corpora- 
tions for the manufacturing of cotton and woolen cloth were 
formed, known respectively as the Troy Manufactory Com- 
pany, later called the Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufac- 
tory, and the Fall River Manufactory. The incorporators 
of the Troy corporation — so called because at that time 
Fall River was a village in the town of Troy — were A. 
Borden, Clark Chase, Oliver Chace, James Maxwell, Jona- 
than Brown, William Slade, N. M. Wheaton, Oliver Earl, 
Eber Slade, Joseph C. Luther, Sheffel Weaver, John Stock- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 225 

ford for Charles Wheaton and self, Nathaniel Wheeler, 
James DriscoU, Benjamin Slade, Daniel Buffington, Heze- 
kiah Wilson, Benjamin Durfee, William Read, Robinson 
Buffington, John Martin, and Benjamin Buffington. The 
capitalization was fifty thousand dollars. The Fall River 
Manufactory with a capital of forty thousand dollars was 
incorporated by David Anthony, Dexter Wheeler, and Abra- 
ham Bowen. The Fall River Manufactory was organized 
Feb. 11, 1813, and the Troy Cotton and Woolen Manu- 
factory March 8, 1813. The mill of the Fall River Manu- 
factory was completed in October, 1813, and was about 
sixty feet by forty feet, three stories, the lower being of 
stone and the upper two of wood, as it was said "there 
was not enough stone in Rhode Island to finish it with." 
It started some time before the Troy mill, the erection of 
which was completed in September, 1813, though work at 
the Troy mill did not commence until the middle of March, 
1814. The Troy mill was built of stone from the neighbor- 
ing fields, was four stories in height, had a low hip roof, 
and was one hundred and eight feet long and thirty-seven 
feet wide. As compared with the mammoth mills of to-day, 
these mills were infants, but they were the forerunners of 
all that followed. 

Strange to say, all of the original mills, Durfee's, the 
Troy and the Fall River mills, were burned, and the present 
structures were built on the old sites. Mill after mill 
sprang up, the cotton being brought to Fall River in small 
sailing vessels, having been hauled to the Southern coast 
by mules or horses or brought down the streams. Little 
cotton was then cultivated in the South at a distance remote 
from the coast, and a great deal was brought to New York 
and reshipped to New England. So bad was the condition 
in which it was received from the South that it had to be 
sent out by the mills to women in the neighborhood, who 
picked out by hand the seed that still clung to the cotton. 



226 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

EARLY LOOMS, WORK, AND WAGES 

In the beginning these mills spun only the cotton for the 
weaving, the yarn being put out to be woven on hand looms 
by women in the neighborhood. The first power weaving 
was done in the Fall River Manufactory in 1817, on a heavy, 
clumsy loom, invented by Dexter Wheeler, that frequently 
got out of order, while the dressing was so poor that often 
the yarn would mildew and rot on the beam. 

The first loom is said to have been started by Sarah 
Winters, the second by Mary Healy, and the third by 
Hannah Borden. The cloth was woven a yard wide by 
weavers who received $2.50 per week, and was sold for 
twenty-five cents in the stores that were often a part of 
the mills. In 1819 fifteen hands ran thirty looms in the 
Fall River mill. Three were employed in the dressing-room, 
ten in the carding-room. In all the mill had not more than 
thirty-five employees. The work began at 5 a.m. in summer, 
and as soon as it was light at other times. At eight o'clock 
there was a half -hour for breakfast, and at noon another half- 
hour for dinner. In some of the Fall River mills the male 
help at eleven o'clock were treated to New England rum. 
At 7.30 P.M. the work stopped and the mills shut down. 
On Saturdays the mills closed at four or five o'clock in 
order to allow the employees to prepare for Sunday. The 
workers were then all Americans. A mill superintendent 
drew $2 per day; overseers, $1.25 per day; male workers, 
from $0.83 to $1 per day; while women received still less, 
and boys or girls from $1 to $2 per week. 

Power looms were not installed in the Troy mill until 
the latter part of 1820. The spinning frames had seventy- 
two spindles each, and the best spinners ran only a pair of 
frames, which produced two and one-half skeins per spindle 
a day. Blair's picking machine was first used by the Fall 
River Manufactory. Previously the mills had been paying 
four cents a pound for hand picking, and five or six pounds 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 227 

were considered a good day's work. The first dresser used 
in the Fall River mill warped the beam in sections of about 
an eighth of a yard at a time; while the roping until 1825 
was made in cones with open tops or with tops that had to 
be wound by hand upon the bobbin, and very little of the 
yarn was over No. 16. 

Here at first, as elsewhere in New England, linen was 
used for the warp and cotton for the filling, or weft, but the 
introduction of imported machinery soon produced cotton 
of sufficient strength to serve as the warp as well as the 
weft. 

As there were no middlemen in these early days, the man- 
ufacturers were obliged to find their own market, and cloths 
were accordingly sold directly from the mill to the people 
of the surrounding country. The products were very 
coarse sheetings, and then plain cloths, and, when color was 
wanted, the yarn was dyed. Company stores were gener- 
ally maintained by these earlier mills, so that the employees 
seldom received their wages in cash, but were generally paid 
in provisions and other supplies from the general store, over 
the counters of which the mills also sold their products. 



OTHER COMPANIES 

The Union Cotton Factory was started in 1813 in a 
small wooden building, on the site of the Laurel Lake Mills, 
in what was then Tiverton, by Edward Estes and others, 
and was the third mill in Fall River. It was burned in 
1838. 

The fourth company to be incorporated in Fall River 
was the Pocasset Manufacturing Company, which was or- 
ganized in 1822 with a capital of one hundred thousand 
dollars, the principal owner being Samuel Rodman, of New 
Bedford, who became its president, while Oliver Chace, of 
the Troy mill, was engaged as agent. The mill, which was 
built of stone and was one hundred feet by forty feet and 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

tliree stories high with a long L at the south end extending 
over the river, proved too large for the company's business, 
and in 1824 Andrew Robeson, of New Bedford, hired a part, 
and started the first plant for printing calico in Fall River. 

The printing was first done in the north end of the old 
Satinet Mill, which took its name from the class of woolen 
goods made there, and the first printing machine that 
Robeson used was made by Ezra Marble and a French 
immigrant who had obtained in France the necessary 
knowledge, and was set up about 1827, though it was some 
years later that machine printing superseded the hand and 
block process. 

It was soon found that Robeson's shop could not fill the 
requirements of the growing industry, and in 1834 Holder 
Borden organized the American Print Works, the prede- 
cessor of the American Printing Company. With him were 
associated many of the stockholders of the Fall River Iron 
Works, another early industry of Fall River. The Ameri- 
can Print Works started in January, 1835, with four ma- 
chines, and handled from two thousand to twenty-five 
hundred pieces a week, and the company has since grown 
to be the largest print works in America. 

Steam was first used in Fall River in "the Doctor's Mill,** 
so called because it was later owned and run by Dr. Nathan 
Durfee. The mill was built in 1845 at the foot of Cherry 
Street. It was also called the Massasoit Steam Mill. 

Fall River was the first American textile centre to use 
Sharp & Roberts self-acting mules. They were brought 
to America in 1838 by William C. Davol, who had succeeded 
in purchasing some of the mules in Manchester, under an 
agreement with the Sharp people that he would manufact- 
ure them for the Sharps under an American patent. It 
was one thing, however, to buy the machines but quite 
another to take them out of England, owing to the jealous 
restrictions that she placed about the exportation of 
textile machinery. To circumvent the law prohibiting the 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 229 

machinery from leaving England, Mr. Davol arranged 
with agents in England to take the machinery down, saw 
it into small pieces, pack it in narrow boxes as if it 
were plate glass, and ship it to America by way of France, 
where it arrived safely two years after its purchase. It 
was easy for Mr. Davol's firm of machinists, — ^Haines, 
Marvel & Davol, — with their expert knowledge of me- 
chanics and his familiarity with the machines, to put the 
machinery together again and duplicate its construction in 
other machines. It was not until 1846 that they installed 
the mules in the Metacomet Mill, which he and Major 
Bradford Durfee constructed in that year from plans they 
brought from England. 

In 1832 the American Linen Company was organized to 
make the better grade of linen fabrics, the first of their 
kind in America, workmen as well as the flax being brought 
from England. At first the mill was very successful, but, 
as cotton fabrics took the place of linen, the business fell off, 
until finally in 1838 linen making was abandoned and the 
factory has since been operated as a cotton mill. 

The development of Fall River has since been rapid, 
although its progress has been affected by the different 
financial depressions which have periodically hampered 
the American industry. Mill after mill has been estab- 
lished in Fall River until to-day the city is one of the 
leading textile centres of America, its annual product, ac- 
cording to the last census, being $56,000,000. 



PROVIDENCE 

The beginning of the industry in Providence has already 
been briefly referred to in a preceding chapter. Fulling 
mills were in operation at an early date. One of the earliest 
references to the industry is in January, 1704, when William 
Smith, a weaver, received a piece of land forty feet square 
"to build a weaver's shop upon, he being desirous to follow 



230 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

his weaver's trade"; and in December, 1700, Joseph Smith, 
a brother, was granted for the same purpose three acres of 
land near Wanskuck. In 1674 Moses Lippitt was inden- 
tured, by Edward Sairle and Anna Sairle, his step-father 
and mother, for fifteen years and a half and two months to 
William Austin to learn the trade of weaver. 

The eighteen young ladies of Providence belonging to 
the "Daughters of Liberty," of whom we have already 
spoken, met by invitation at the house of Ezekiel Bowen 
in 1766, and spun linen from sunrise to sunset to encourage 
home industries. The organization increased rapidly, and 
held meetings at the Old State House on North Main 
Street, where they wove a handsome web of linen to be given 
as a prize to the farmer who might raise the most flax that 
year. The General Assembly for a time offered a bounty 
of one-third of the value of the finished product. 

Soon after the peace of 1783 Rhode Island began turning 
its attention to manufactures, and in 1787 the first company 
in the State for the manufacture of cotton was formed at 
Providence. Its object was to make homespun cloth by 
hand. The first enterprise was begun, as we have related, 
under the auspices of Daniel Anthony, Andrew Dexter, and 
Lewis Peck. They built a jenny of twenty-eight spindles 
after the Orr models at Bridgewater, and set it up in a 
private house at Providence, and subsequently moved it to 
the market house and operated it there; after that a spin- 
ning frame having eight heads of four spindles each. The 
spinning frame constructed was afterwards taken to North 
Providence to be worked by water, but it was found to be 
too imperfect for use. 

While the experiments were being made in the chamber 
of the market house, two weavers, Joseph Alexander and 
James McKerries, came from Scotland to Providence, claim- 
ing to understand the use of the fly shuttle. McKerries 
settled in east Greenwich, while Alexander took up his 
residence in Providence. A loom was built by Alexander 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 231 

for making corduroys and set up in the market house. It 
was operated, as we have already seen, with more or less 
success, but no one knew how to cut the corduroy and give 
it the proper finish, so the manufacture was soon abandoned, 
when Alexander removed to Philadelphia. 

A notice printed in the Gazette and Country Journal, Aug. 
8, 1789, read, "Almost every family seems more or less en- 
gaged in this way" (promoting manufactures in this town). 

"There are now also at work a carding machine with a 
three-foot cylinder, two spinning jennies of sixty spindles 
each, and one of thirty-eight spindles, and a mill after 
Arkwright's construction, which carries thirty-two spindles 
by water, from which machines, as well as large quantities 
spun by hand. Corduroys, Jeans, Fustians, Denims, &c., &c., 
are making. There are several other machines for the Wool 
Manufactory, among which the Wool Picker and Flying 
Shuttle are improvements every raiser of Sheep and Manu- 
facturing Family should possess." 

The arrival in 1790 of Samuel Slater greatly stimulated 
the industry in Providence, as elsewhere in Rhode Island, 
and the first cotton thread spun by machinery in Rhode 
Island was spun in the chamber of the market house in 
Providence. The first cotton thread spun by water in the 
United States was spun in North Providence. 

John FuUem worked a stocking loom in Providence about 
1788, and in March, 1790, a calendering machine worked 
by horse-power was set up there. 

In 1790 Henry Vandausen, a German, began calico 
printing at East Greenwich, cut his own blocks, and printed 
for people generally cottons and the coarse cotton wove in 
families. But the first print works in the country did not 
prove profitable because of English and Indian goods. 

In 1794 Messrs. Schaub, Tissot & Dubosque engaged 
in printing calicoes in a chocolate mill later occupied by 
the Franklin Machine Company. Dubosque, who had been 
in the French navy, learned calico printing in Alsace before 



232 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

entering the navy. Calcutta cottons were used, and the 
printing was done with wooden blocks, while the calendering 
was done by friction with flint stone. 

In 1797 Peter Schaub and Robert Newell began the 
same business, cotton cloths imported from the East Indies 
being used and wooden blocks employed to give the figures 
and colors. Previously calico printing had been carried 
on at East Greenwich. This is supposed to have been the 
first calico printing done in America. 

In 1790, 30,000 yards of woolen cloth were made in and 
around Providence; and, in 1791, 25,265 yards of linen, 5,895 
of cotton, 3,165 of woolen, 512 of carpeting, 4,093 pairs of 
stockings, 859 pairs of gloves, and 263 yards of fringe. In 
1794 cotton twist was made at Providence, in Nos. 12, 16, 
20, which were respectively sold at $0.88, $1.04, and $1.21. 

There were thirty-eight cotton mills in Rhode Island in 
1812 with 30,669 spindles. The first duty on cotton goods 
was 10 per cent. In 1797 it was raised to 123/^ per cent. At 
the close of the War of 1812 a gigantic petition was sent to 
Congress for protection, and in 1815 one cent a spindle was 
raised to pay the expenses of Agent James Burrill to repre- 
sent Massachusetts and Rhode Island before Congress. 
In 1816 the duty was fixed at 25 per cent, ad valorem upon 
cotton and woolen. 

At the close of the War of 1812, there were 99 cotton 
mills with 75,678 spindles in or near Providence, R.I.; 
Massachusetts had 57 mills with 45,650 spindles; Connect- 
icut, 14 mills with 12,886 spindles; or 170 cotton mills 
in all with 134,214 spindles. 

Owing to Slater's influence and the abundant water power 
about Providence, the industry developed rapidly, and to-day 
the territory within thirty miles of Providence is the greatest 
textile centre in America. According to the latest census 
the output amounted to $37,000,000. 





T 



r-'H| A ?' 



\ V V r X l."^ ^ t V^ > V 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 233 

PATERSON, N.J. 

The enterprise of Slater at Pawtucket had also much 
effect in influencing some gentlemen of New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania to start a movement for the es- 
tablishment of a cotton industry in or around New York. 
The result was an elaborate plan for the establishment 
of the textile industry on the Great Falls of the Passaic 
River and the consequent foundation of Paterson as one of 
the textile centres. 

The prime mover in the enterprise was Alexander Hamil- 
ton, Secretary of the Treasury, whose interest in early 
American manufacturing did so much to promote it. Al- 
though he did not subscribe to any of the stock of the 
Paterson company, his advice and influence were most 
potent in assisting the men who were able to undertake the 
work. 

The first meeting was held Nov. 22, 1791, at New Bruns- 
wick, N.J., and a company formed called the Society for 
the Establishment of Useful Manufactures. The following 
directors were elected: William Duer, John Dewhurst, 
Benjamin Walker, Nicholas Low, Royal Flint, Elias 
Boudinot, John Bayard, John Neilson, Archibald Mercer, 
Thomas Lowry, George Lewis, More Furman, and Alexander 
McComb, many of whom were not only prominent citi- 
zens of New Jersey, but several of whom had a national 
reputation. 

The principal purpose was the production of cotton yarn 
and cotton fabrics, although the company contemplated 
the manufacture of other useful articles. Nehemiah Hub- 
bard, Esq., of Middletown, Conn., was appointed general 
superintendent with a salary of two thousand dollars a year. 
Advertisements for sites were printed in the papers of New 
York, Philadelphia, and Trenton, and finally a committee 
was appointed to fix the seat of manufacture. It was 
finally voted by the committee. May 17, 1792, to locate 



234 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the new industry and the new town at the Great Falls of 
the Passaic, where the Passaic River breaks through the 
range of hills that rise about five hundred feet and are 
known as the Orange Mountains, and then flows into what 
is the lower part of New York Harbor. 

The Great Falls had an elevation of one hundred and 
four feet above tide-water and were capable of driving two 
hundred and forty-seven water wheels. Here the company 
bought seven hundred acres of land for $8,230, and, although 
some of the directors were in favor of calling the place after 
Hamilton, they named the future town Paterson in honor of 
William Paterson, Governor of the State of New Jersey. 

Resolutions were adopted for erecting a cotton mill and 
buildings to accommodate workmen. Appropriations were 
made of $20,000 for the construction of a canal, $5,000 
for the cotton manufactory and machinery, $12,000 for the 
print works, and $5,000 for the weave-shop and equipment. 

The comfort of their employees was also considered by 
the directors of the company, for fifty houses for workmen, 
twenty-four feet by eighteen feet, with a cellar and garret, 
were to be built, at a cost of about two hundred and fifty 
dollars each. Any mechanic, married and of good character, 
was to have the privilege of leasing the house on a long 
term of years or of buying it on the instalment plan. 

The company on the 18th of July, 1792, advertised for 
contracts to build a canal thirty feet wide and a dam above 
the Great Falls to be four feet high and for the erection of 
four stone mills and fifty houses, the units being two 
houses under one roof with a parting wall. According to 
the minutes of the meeting held Oct. 1, 1792, the paid in 
capital amounted to $160,000.92, of which $14,139.87 had 
been spent for the purchase of land, grist and saw mill, 
$7,500 for machinery, materials, and implements, and 
$12,545.43 for building materials, salaries, and wages. 

Mr. Hubbard was soon succeeded by Major L'Enfant, 
a French engineer who had been with Napoleon and who 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 235 

had surveyed and laid out the city of Washington. Major 
L'Enfant's ideas, however, were on such a grand scale and 
so impractical that he was soon succeeded by Peter Colt, 
who had been comptroller of the State of Connecticut and 
interested in the Hartford Woolen Manufactory. Colt 
took charge in February, 1793. A wooden building for 
temporary occupancy was built, the cotton machinery being 
run at first by ox-power until the water-power equipment 
could be completed, and so for many years the building 
bore the name the "Bull Mill." 

The permanent mill, which was completed in the summer 
of 1794 and which was about on the site of where the silk 
mill of Hammel & Booth stood, was of stone, ninety feet 
long, forty feet wide, and four stories high. According to 
the Connecticut Journal of July 2, 1794, the spinning of 
cotton by water power began June 14 of the same year. 
The dam and canal had been completed, and the mill was 
opened with a parade and a ball, which was given at the 
factory. The equipment of the factory seems to have been 
four carding machines, twenty-five spinning jennies, and 
sixty single looms. It employed a hundred and twenty- 
five operatives. 

The enterprise, however, was not a success. The ex- 
travagant constructive work, together with the mismanage- 
ment said to have been due to an improper use of the funds 
by some of the officers, led the stockholders to refuse to pay 
further instalments on their subscriptions, and finally on 
Jan. 26, 1796, a resolution was adopted that the superin- 
tendent be directed to stop all manufacture as soon as goods 
in hand could be finished and to discharge the help. Mr. 
Colt asked for his dismissal, and it was granted March 7, 
1797. 

The factory remained unoccupied until 1800. John 
Park then turned it into a mill for making candlewicking. 
According to James Beaumont, an Englishman who visited 
Paterson to buy machinery in the spring of 1801 and who 



236 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

visited the cotton factory, it was nearly full of machinery 
of a costly kind, the billets of the carding cylinders being 
covered with mahogany. The machines did not seem to 
have been worked, and apparently John Clark, who later 
engaged in machinery manufacturing in Providence, was 
using the basement story for making textile machinery. 
Clark continued to occupy the basement of the factory 
until the factory was burned in 1807. 

Since this date the Society for the Encouragement of 
Useful Manufactures has not operated any mill of its own, 
but the stock has acquired much value because the company 
has retained its real estate and rights to the water power, 
which have been used to develop the subsequent textile 
industries as well as other manufacturing operations in 
Paterson. 

The establishment of the silk industry in Paterson has 
already been referred to in the chapter on silk, but these 
further details complete the story. The first silk mill 
started by Christopher Colt, Jr., of Hartford, was a small 
affair, and was bought in 1840 by G. W. Murray, of North- 
ampton, who put in charge John Ryle, an English silk 
weaver from Macclesfield, England. 

Ryle became a partner in 1843, the firm being Murray 
& Ryle, and in 1846 Ryle with his two brothers who came 
from England bought out Murray and began weaving dress 
goods. Although the silk was of excellent quality, it could 
not be made at a profit, and he devoted his mill to tram 
organzines, spool silks, and trimmings. Later, when his 
sons became associated with him, he successfully took up 
the making of twills and fancy silks. Ryle has been called 
the father of the Paterson silk industry. Other mills 
started in a small way in Paterson, and little by little 
the industry grew until the output has reached the pres- 
ent proportions, which, according to the last census, was 
$50,000,000 annually. 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 237 



NEW BEDFORD 

The beginning of the textile industry at New Bedford, 
like the development at Lawrence, was due to the enterprise 
of one man, whose persistence in carrying out his purpose 
overcame all obstacles. 

About 1840 Dwight Perry had left Fairhaven, which is 
across the river from New Bedford, and had started in 
Georgia a small cotton mill, having as one of his employees 
Thomas Bennett. Becoming desirous of having his own 
business, Bennett returned to New Bedford, and endeavored 
to interest New Bedford capital in starting a mill in Georgia. 
He persuaded William T. Russell in 1846 to go to Georgia 
with him to look into water power and mill sites, and on 
their return tried unsuccessfully to secure New York capital 
for the enterprise. 

Meeting Joseph Grinnell, who was a Congressman from 
New Bedford, Bennett and Russell interested him, but he 
refused to take part in the plan unless the mill was built 
at New Bedford, where those who invested might watch the 
progress of the enterprise. 

The opinion of David Whitman, who was a mill expert 
and was engaged in cotton manufacturing at Warwick, R.L, 
was sought, and his favorable opinion of the success of 
building a mill at New Bedford led Grinnell to back Ben- 
nett's project. It was decided to raise three hundred 
thousand dollars, and to build a mill with three hundred 
spindles. New Bedford's capital at the time was tied up 
in the whaling industry, which was then at its height and 
paying large profits, and the holders of money were very 
loath to put their capital into such an uncertain venture 
as a new cotton mill in New Bedford. Not only was the 
sentiment of the citizens against the project, but the me- 
chanics of New Bedford were opposed to it, because they 
thought that mill work with its organized and regular busi- 
ness would be inimical to them. Only $157,900 could be 



238 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

raised, and that in small subscriptions ranging from ten to 
a hundred and fifty shares. Grinnell, who had subscribed 
for $10,000, took $2,100 more, making $160,000, with which 
it was decided to start. 

A charter was granted April 8, 1846, for the Wamsutta 
Mills, Matthew Luce, Jireh Perry, and Thomas S. Hatha- 
way being the incorporators. Joseph Grinnell was chosen 
president; Edward L. Baker, treasurer; and Joseph Grin- 
nell, David R. Greene, Thomas Mandell, Joseph C. Delano, 
and Pardon Tillinghast, directors. Thomas Bennett was 
made superintendent. Carpenters, mechanics, and opera- 
tors had to be brought from Rhode Island, Connecticut, and 
the central part of Massachusetts; and all the material 
but the building stone, and some of that, had to be trans- 
ported from Fall River. Boarding-houses and tenements 
were to be constructed for the employees. At a stock- 
holders' meeting held June 9, 1847, it was voted to buy a 
tract of land with power, south of Benjamin Rodman's, for 
$7,500, as fresh water and railroad and shipping facilities 
were at hand. 

Mill No. 1, designed for fifteen thousand spindles and 
three hundred looms, was built, but only ten thousand 
spindles and two hundred looms put in. It was completed 
in 1848, and manufacturing began Jan. 1, 1849. Bennett 
recommended Wamsutta shirtings, and they have since 
been sold all over the world. 

In 1849 the capital stock was increased to three hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and five thousand more spindles and 
one hundred more looms put in. The first dividend was 
declared Feb. 1, 1850. Slowly, but surely, the business in- 
creased, and even the Civil War did not close the mill. 
Although the mill was very successful, it was not until 
1871, over twenty years after the starting of the Wam- 
sutta Mill, that the second mill, the Potomska Mill, 
started. In the mean time, mill after mill had been added 
to the Wamsutta, and dividend after dividend had been 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 239 

paid, until the original stockholders had received over 300 
per cent, on their money. The Acushnet followed in 1881, 
and the New Bedford and City Manufacturers in 1882. 
Mill after mill has been erected, until there are now over 
fifty mills which turn out the best grade of cotton goods, 
to which the climate of New Bedford is peculiarly adapted. 
It is said to be more like that of Manchester, England, than 
any other American city. In 1911 the city had 2,939,884 
spindles and 54,282 looms, supplying 31,140 workmen. 
There were sixty-seven cotton mills with a capital of 
$36,821,300. In 1912 the population of New Bedford was 
105,000, which turned out, according to the last census, 
$44,000,000 worth of goods. 

MANCHESTER 

Like Lowell and Lawrence, Manchester, N.H., was a 
"manufactured" town that was originally owned and de- 
veloped by the mill which bought the water rights and first 
started its spindles in the locality. And, as Lowell and 
Lawrence had far-sighted and fearless merchants whose 
imagination could see the possibilities of a remote future, so 
Manchester had men of the same stamp, the first of whom 
was Samuel Blodgett. 

Blodgett, who was born in Woburn, Mass., had served 
as sutler during the Revolution, had been a judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas and a merchant, when in 1793 he 
went to live at Derryfield on the east bank of the Merrimac, 
near Amoskeag Falls. He built a canal to carry lumber 
around the falls, and completed the work May 11, 1807. 
Appreciating the great power of the water, he endeavored 
unsuccessfully to interest Boston capital in mill develop- 
ment, which he saw could be readily compassed. He died 
soon after the completion of the canal, and it passed into 
the hands of the Middlesex Canal. In June, 1810, the name 
Derryfield was changed to Manchester in honor of Judge 



240 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

Blodgett, who had said that the site would be the Man- 
chester of America. 

Early in 1809 Benjamin Pritchard, who had learned his 
trade at New Ipswich, and had come to Bedford and spun 
cotton on the old Goffe place, with Ephraim, David, and 
Robert Stevens built a cotton mill on the west side of 
Amoskeag Falls, in what was then called Goffstown. As 
the financial burden was too heavy for them to carry alone, 
a joint stock company was formed, and the first meeting 
was held Jan. 31, 1810, as "The Proprietors of the Amos- 
keag Cotton and Woolen Factory." In June of the same 
year they incorporated as the "Amoskeag Cotton & Wool 
Manufactory." 

The incorporators were James Parker, Samuel P. Kidder, 
John Stark, Jr., David McQuestion, and Benjamin Pritchard. 
Parker was president, and Jotham Gillis was clerk, and later 
agent. The original mill was a pygmy compared with the 
great structures of to-day, for it was but forty feet square 
and two stories high. It had no cotton picker, the cotton 
being ginned in the neighborhood and by the farmers* wives 
at four cents per pound, and the machinery consisted of only 
spindles, the cotton spun being either woven for the mill by 
the housewives in the neighborhood or sold at the mill. 

The machinery ran until 1816. Lack of business then 
stopped the spindles, and they remained idle until 1822, when 
Olney Robinson, of Attleboro, Mass., bought the property, 
and work was resumed. Subsequently it was sold to 
Larned Pitcher and Samuel Slater, of Pawtucket, and in 1825 
they sold three-fifths of the property to Willard Sayles and 
Lyman Tiffany, of the firm of Sayles, Tiffany & Hitchcock. 
Dr. Oliver Dean became agent of the company, and in 1826 
a new mill was built, called the "Bell Mill," and another on 
an adjacent island, and the company commenced to make 
the sheetings, ticking, and shirtings that since have made 
the Amoskeag Mills famous. The engineer who laid out 
the new mill was Ezekiel Straw, who also laid out the Amos- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 241 

keag Locomotive Works and who built the first fire-engine. 
He was agent of the Amoskeag Mills for a great many years, 
and did much to lay the foundations of their great prosperity. 
The company was again incorporated July 1, 1831, as 
the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company by Ira Gay, 
Willard Sayles, Oliver Dean, Larned Pitcher, and Lyman 
Tiffany, who also acted with power of attorney from Slater, 
and the capital was a million dollars. Tiffany was chosen 
first president; Ira Gay, clerk; and Oliver Dean, agent and 
treasurer. Tiffany, Gay, and Sayles became directors. 



AMOSKEAG LAYS OUT A TOWN 

The new corporation bought all the water power along 
the Merrimac from Manchester to Concord and all the land 
available for building sites in Manchester. The town was 
laid out by the Amoskeag Company, streets and public 
squares being made; and in 1838 part of the land was divided 
into lots, and sales began for stores and dwelling-sites. 
Boarding-houses and tenements were built for their em- 
ployees, and land was sold and water privileges leased to 
other corporations. And thus the city of Manchester, 
N.H., was founded by the Amoskeag Company. The pay 
of the early agents was $180 per year, and outside weavers 
received thirty-six cents per day. The second mill, the 
Stark Mill, was incorporated Sept. 26, 1836, with Nathan 
Apple ton as president. In 1830 Manchester had but 877 
people, and by the 1910 census it had 70,063. The gross 
value of the total output of textile products during the 
year, according to the last census, was $23,000,000. 

NEW YORK 

The burghers of early New York were as proficient in the 
handicraft of the home as were the Puritans of New Eng- 
land, and among these handicrafts homespun spinning and 



242 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

weaving held the principal place. Throughout the colonial 
era, evidences of the industry in the homes of New Amster- 
dam are numerous, but, although the city early made stren- 
uous efforts to compass the establishment of the industry 
in a sense that could be called manufacturing, the industry 
never obtained so strong a hold as it did in New England 
because of the lack of water power. 

A society called the Society for the Promotion of Arts, 
Agriculture, and Economy was formed in 1764 to encourage 
the manufacture of linens. Another organization was 
formed later, the members of which pledged themselves 
neither to buy imported cloth nor to eat the meat of sheep 
or lambs less than two years old. Homespun raiment be- 
came quite the vogue. Governor Moore in 1767 reported 
for New York that there were two kinds of wool being made 
there: one class of all wool; the other linsey-woolsey, of 
linen in the warp and wool in the weft. 

Soon after the Revolution the industrial development of 
the city engaged the attention of its residents, and late in 
1788 an organization called "the New York Society for 
the Encouragement of American Manufactures" was 
formed to carry out this purpose. At one of the first meet- 
ings, held Jan. 5, 1789, at Rawson's Tavern, it was unani- 
mously resolved to raise a fund to promote the objects 
of the society, and a constitution adopted at a later meet- 
ing designated the purpose of the society as that of estab- 
lishing house manufactures in the city of New York, fur- 
nishing employment for the honest and industrious poor, 
and named the organization the New York Manufacturing 
Society. The treasurer was Alexander Robertson. 

An advertisement was inserted in the New York Journal 
for a manager and superintendent to take charge of the 
manufacturing, and on the 3d of July, 1789, notice was 
given that the society was ready to do business on its bleach- 
ground at Mill Hall, Second River, N.J., and that linen 
cloth and yarn would be taken in to bleach either there or 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 243 

at the factory, 21 Crown Street. It was further announced 
that good weavers would be furnished with looms at their 
own houses if they would apply at the factory. 

A later advertisement shows that a Mr. Stevenson was 
then the manager, and that brown linen sheeting, linen yarn 
of the first quality, hatchelled flax, tow, and backings, were 
being sold at the factory in Vesey Street, to which it had 
been removed. By Dec. 23, 1789, fourteen weavers and 
a hundred and thirty spinners were at work. Cotton 
machinery had been started at this date. 

In a letter Moses Brown received from Samuel Slater, 
who was employed in the factory during the months of 
November and December, 1789, Slater said that the factory 
had but one card, two machines, and two spinning jennies, 
and they were very inefficient. On the 3d of August, 1789, 
the directors ordered small notes to be struck off, of one, two, 
three, four, and five pence and up, which they issued to 
their employees and received in payment for goods pur- 
chased at the factory, and bound themselves to exchange 
at all times for gold or silver or paper currency of the State. 

An advertisement which appeared on Dec. 11, 1790, shows 
that the manufacture of cotton yarns and cloth, as well as 
linen, was under way. The cotton and linen sheetings 
had undoubtedly a linen warp and cotton filling. The 
business, however, did not prosper, and for a number of 
months subsequent to May 9, 1793, the factory was offered 
for sale or lease. 

There seems to have been no further effort at an estab- 
lishment of the industry until about July 30, 1793, when 
David Dickson and others on New York Island, on the 
bank of the East River opposite Hell Gate, took steps to 
start the manufacturing firm of Dickson, Livingston & Co. 
by mortgaging for three thousand dollars twenty-eight acres 
of land with houses, mills, and buildings at this place. It is 
not known at what time they began manufacturing, but it 
may have been early in 1793. According to a description 



244 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

given by an English clothier who visited the factory in 1794, 
it was known as Dickson's Cotton Factory, and was worked 
by a breast water wheel twenty feet in diameter. There 
were two large buildings, four stories high and eighty feet 
long. Twenty-six looms were at work, weaving fustians, 
calicoes, nankeens, nankinettes, dimities, etc. Ten looms 
were being operated in the neighborhood, and the Arkwright 
system of spinning was being worked by twelve or fourteen 
workmen from Manchester. There were twenty or thirty 
women and children at work. The women were making two 
dollars a week with their board and lodging. This shows 
that as early as 1794 not only was the Arkwright system 
being used, but the Crompton mule, at a date at least ten 
years earlier than most authorities have fixed the first use 
of the mule in this country. Already in 1793 John Daniel, 
a European mechanic, had established himself in New York 
City, where he had commenced the construction of carding 
machines of all kinds; also the new invented machines for 
cleaning seed cotton, etc. 

The power supplied to the Dickson mill came from the 
breast wheel that was driven by water from a reservoir 
having a fall of some ten feet, the feeder of the reservoir 
being a brook flowing from the hills in the interior of Man- 
hattan Island. If a tide wheel was used, it was solely for 
the purpose of pumping water into the reservoir during the 
dry season of the year. The business seems to have been 
conducted until the close of 1793 as the New York Cotton 
and Linen Manufactory. According to Samuel Batchelder 
the machinery was in full operation in 1795. The property 
was, however, sold Dec. 26, 1799. 

These early attempts at the textile industry on the Island 
of Manhattan demonstrated that it was not feasible ever to 
establish much of a textile industry in the city of New York. 
As late as 1824 the county of New York contained but three 
fulling mills, five carding machines, and two cotton and 
woolen factories. Its greatest development has been in 




MODERN AUTOMATIC NORTHROP LOOMS 

(Courtesy of the Draper Company) 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 245 

tlie cutting up trade and the manufacturing of clothing, to 
which Hues of industry it owes its prominence as a textile 
centre to-day. According to the census these industries 
have grown to a size which makes New York to-day the 
leading city of America in the cutting up lines, the gross 
value of its textile products, according to the 1910 census, 
being $52,000,000. 

AMSTERDAM 

The rugged figure of Sir William Johnson, the famous 
pioneer of middle New York, looms in the background of 
the history of Amsterdam, Montgomery County, N.Y. He 
it was who built the saw-mill on the Chuctenunda River, 
which was the beginning of the Amsterdam industry, 
and which later was one of the sites of the early textile 
mills. Johnson bought the property about Amsterdam in 
1742, and utilized the water power of the river in the mill. 
The little hamlet, which was settled about 1775 and was 
called Veedersburg, grew slowly. In 1814 its present name 
was adopted, but it was not until 1885 that it was chartered 
as a city. In 1813 it had two carding and two fulling 
machines. In 1814 the Star Hosiery Mills of H. Pawling 
& Sons were commenced by Pawling and Jackson, in which 
woolen goods were manufactured. 

Wait, Greene & Co. in 1840 had leased a small satinet 
factory at Hagaman's mills, near Amsterdam, and com- 
menced to make ingrain carpets. Two years later the 
partnership was dissolved, and W. R. Greene went to Am- 
sterdam proper, and in a small building set up the first car- 
pet looms in the town. John Sandford became interested 
in the place, a larger structure higher up the creek was 
bought, and the business grew rapidly, particularly under 
the direction of Stephen Sandford, a graduate of West 
Point and son of the original owner. 

W. R. Greene and John McDonnell commenced in 1857 
the manufacture of knit goods with two sets of machines. 



246 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

The same year Adam Kline and John Maxwell commenced 
making knit goods. Later Kline sold his interests to Max- 
well, and started in business with his son. The Pioneer 
Hosiery Mills were built in 1868, and since then the textile 
industry in Amsterdam has grown rapidly. Its most im- 
portant industries are carpets, rugs, hosiery, and knit goods. 
Its output, according to the last census, was $17,000,000. 



WOONSOCKET, R.I. 

The falls of the Blackstone and its tributaries, the Mill 
and Peters Rivers, in the vicinity of what is now Woon- 
socket, offered an opportunity for an early establishment 
of the textile industry, as here the falls were about thirty 
feet. In 1810 the water rights were owned by James 
Arnold, Stephen Wilcox, and Joseph Arnold. The latter 
had inherited his land from his grandfather Daniel Arnold, 
one of the early pioneers. 

On Oct. 24, 1810, a meeting was called, at which Ariel 
Abner, Nathan Ballon, Eber Bartlett, Job and Luke Jenckes, 
Oliver Leland, and Joseph Arnold formed the Social Manu- 
facturing Company, and divided the stock into sixteen shares 
of a thousand dollars each, each stockholder taking two 
shares of stock. Cotton yarn and cloth were to be made. 
About four acres of land were sold to Mr. Arnold, and a 
small wooden mill erected that contained two thousand 
spindles. 

James Arnold built a mill in 1814, and here Dexter Ballou 
began to spin cotton. The building was conveyed Oct. 8, 
1821, to Daniel Lyman, and has since been known as the 
Lyman Mill. Dexter Ballou came to Woonsocket in 1817. 
Previously he and his father had been working at Ashton, 
near what was known as the "Sinking Fund." The ma- 
chinery consisted of five cards made by Dexter Ballou, and 
three spinning jennies of eighty-four spindles each. The 
machinery was later removed to Lynn, Mass. When 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 247 

Daniel Lyman bought Joseph Arnold's mill, he also bought 
Ballou's cotton machinery. 

Jenckes sold out his interest in 1822, and built at Peters 
River, at what was Jenckesville, the first stone mill in Woon- 
socket. In 1827 the second wooden mill was built. Dexter 
Ballou became sole proprietor Nov. 12, 1841, and the follow- 
ing year the Stone Mill was enlarged and improved. It 
was very successful under the management of Orin A. 
Ballou, president, Henry Lippitt, treasurer, and Charles 
Nourse, superintendent. July 1, 1874, the mill was burned. 
Woonsocket became a city in 1888, and to-day its principal 
textile products are worsted and woolen yarns, woolen and 
cotton goods, and cotton yarn and silk. Its population 
is about thirty-eight thousand, and its output, according to 
the last census, was $20,000,000. 



CONCLUSION 

The establishment of the textile industry in the textile 
centres of America marks the end of this brief survey of the 
methods by which man has clothed himself. The survey 
has dealt largely with the era from 1733, when Kay invented 
the fly shuttle, to about the death of Samuel Slater a little 
over a century later, because during this period the industry 
has shown its greatest development, and this century marks 
the transition of the industry from a handicraft in the home 
to a power production in the factory. 

This transition has had a far-reaching effect on social 
conditions on both sides of the Atlantic. It has changed 
the face of Western England from an agricultural section 
to a great manufacturing centre, whose mills and factories 
have brought about a segregation of population in industrial 
centres, and has created the great middle class in England. 
It has given labor in England a dignity that it never 
possessed, and has placed many of the great captains of in- 
dustry on a plane of equality with the nobility. Many of 



248 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

the Lancaster mill owners who have played such a potent 
part in the politics of Great Britain for the last hundred 
years have risen from the ranks of the workers or have been 
descendants of workers in the textile mills. 

The industry has been the leaven which has expanded 
the intellectual vision of the industrial worker to a point 
that has made him a factor in the politics of his nation and 
a coming power in the great movement for the betterment 
of the world; for the English textile worker has learned to 
sympathize with the fellow-worker of another nation as 
well as with workers in other classes of industry. 

The transformation on this side of the Atlantic has been 
quite as interesting, though perhaps along somewhat different 
lines. It was during the colonial era and up to the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century a handicraft in the home, 
as it was in England and on the Continent, — a handicraft 
that was limited in output and impotent in its influence 
on the social life of its time. 

The introduction of machinery caused the harnessing 
of the rocky streams of New England to spinning frames 
and looms, and stimulated the inventive genius of the 
Yankee. The concomitant adoption of Arkwright's ma- 
chinery and Lowell's and Gilmore's perfected looms in 
American mills caused an extension of the industry not 
only over the rocky face of New England, but even into 
the cotton-growing fields of the South and along many of 
the less rugged streams of the Middle Atlantic States. 

The industry found New England a great maritime 
centre, sending its ships for trade to the uttermost parts 
of the earth. It stimulated and developed the great ship- 
ping interests during the middle of the nineteenth century; 
for its cotton goods found a ready market in the East, and 
at that time so much greater were the returns from the capi- 
tal invested in the textile mills of New England that money 
was diverted from the shipping interests into mills, and 
during the end of the last century to the more profitable in- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 249 

vestments in transportation and in the fast-growing West. 
To-day the shipping has disappeared and the textile industry 
has dotted the face of New England with the great mill 
centres, which are beehives of production, whirring with 
millions of spindles, clattering with thousands of looms, 
and rumbling with thousands upon thousands of pulleys 
and shaftings, turning out millions of dollars' worth of 
fabrics of every description. 

The growth in America has indeed been phenomenal, 
for prior to 1787 there were few spindles under one roof, 
and very few in the country as a whole. With the estab- 
lishment of the Pennsylvania Society for the Encourage- 
ment of Useful Arts and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, 
the two earliest cotton manufactories, there were not in all 
in 1788 more than 860 spindles in America. According to 
the 1910 census the number of spindles is now 33,998,648, 
of which 28,178,862 were employed in the cotton industry, 
2,156,849 in the woolen industry, and 1,752,806 in the 
worsted, and 1,767,962 in silk, and on flax, hemp, jute, and 
allied fibres 142,169, The census ranks the textile industry 
on the basis of the value of output second only to that of 
food products; while, as to the number of employees, it 
gives it the first place; as to the number of establish- 
ments, fourth place; and as to capital, salaries, and wages, 
second place. 

The total capital invested in the textile industry in this 
country to-day is $1,343,324,605. There are 1,154 mills 
devoted to cotton, 1,213 to wool, 1,079 to knit goods, and 
624 to silk. 739,239 wage-earners are engaged in the indus- 
try, who draw $249,357,277. Its salaried officials and clerks 
number 24,116. The cost of the material used is $745,783,- 
168, and the value of the product is $1,215,036,792. 

Hardly less marvellous than the growth of the industry 
has been the increased production of the individual spinners 
and weavers. As Jonathan Thayer Lincoln well says, in 
the admirable little monograph "The Factory," of the con- 



250 THE STORY OF TEXTILES 

dition of the industry after the establishment of the factory 
system, "The amount of labor performed in a single fac- 
tory was as great as that which formerly gave occupation 
to the inhabitants of an entire district." He says that 
while originally a good hand loom weaver could produce two 
pieces of shirting each week, by 1823 a power loom weaver 
was able to produce seven such pieces in the same time, while 
a factory of two hundred looms operated by one hundred 
persons could, it is estimated, weave seven hundred pieces 
a week. Under the old handicraft system at least 875 looms 
would have been required to weave the same amount of 
cloth. He estimates that the work done in a steam factory 
containing two hundred looms would, if performed by hand, 
give employment and support to a population of two thou- 
sand persons, and that a modern weave-room, containing 
two hundred power looms operated by twenty-five weavers, 
is equivalent to the labor of a community of sixty thousand 
craftsmen, their wives and children. So that to produce 
by hand the work now turned out by the Fall River factories 
alone would require a population of thirty million. 

A further estimate by John S. Lawrence shows that the 
productiveness of the individual weaver and spinner as 
compared with the old handicraft workman has been in- 
creased over a thousand times, and, as the consumption 
continues to increase in equal ratio, we must in the future 
either increase the production of labor and machinery or 
employ a greater per cent, of the population. 

The social changes brought about by the textile industry 
in New England have been almost as marked as those in 
England. At first the mills were made up almost wholly of 
the sons and daughters of native-born Americans, often 
neighbors and friends and almost always acquaintances of 
the proprietor. As the industry grew, calling for more help, 
Irish and French-Canadians came in, driving out with their 
cheaper labor the native-born, and this together with the 
offering of the mill stock on a wider scale resulted in a dis- 



THE STORY OF TEXTILES 251 

continuance of this close working relationship between 
employee and employer, until it was not long before the 
employers, or the stockholders, were entire strangers to the 
body of employees. The French- Canadians in turn were 
driven out by the hordes of emigrants from Russia, Poland, 
Bohemia, and the southern countries of Europe, — a class 
unfamiliar with American ideas or American standards of 
living. This last class of help has done a great deal to 
change the civic conditions of the factory towns and to lower 
the standard of living. Hours and conditions of work are, 
on the other hand, constantly improving. As more and 
more of the mill owners are showing a regard for their em- 
ployees, outside as well as inside their factories, the general 
conditions in the mill towns are improving, and the day is 
rapidly approaching when the criticisms of the present 
mill town conditions will not apply. 

The textile industry is so highly competitive and the 
development of machinery has produced such excellent 
work with but little skill that the textile mills of New Eng- 
land have become great training schools in industry for the 
most recently arrived immigrants from the less resourceful 
nations of the whole world; while in the South the indus- 
try has lifted to a plane of greater comfort and efficiency the 
natives who even before the war were completely poverty- 
stricken. Not only have the mills trained the employees 
and their children so that former textile employees now 
form the part of our great middle class which operate our 
industries everywhere, but they have also furnished the 
means by which they and their children have been fed, 
clothed, and educated. 

The Statute Books of many of the more advanced States, 
such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, 
already contain admirable laws aimed to remove the causes 
of friction between the employees and the mill owners and 
the public. Many mills are taking steps not only to safe- 
guard their employees while at work, but to promote their 



252 



THE STORY OP TEXTILES 



happiness and to better their living conditions. And, as 
soon as a community is able to feed and clothe its children 
and endure taxation for education, the employment of 
children will cease. Many who have for hire, either capital 
or labor, are beginning to realize that theirs is a trust given 
them temporarily, not alone for their own benefit, but for 
the interests of the community; and employers and em- 
ployees who act in accord with this realization are the 
effective forces in making the future of the country better 
for all. 




Reproduction of the original engraved copperplate 
of Samuel Wetlierill, of Philadelphia, the first manu- 
facturer of velverets, jeans, fustians, and other cloths 
in America, used by him as early as 1782 to print cards 
and labels for his manufacture. 



INDEX 



Abbott, J. G., stockholder, 219. 

Acme Spinning Company, first to 
use electric power, 69. 

Acushnet Mills, New Bedford, 239. 

Adair, James, 113. 

Addison and Stevens, o/ New York, 
patent a ring spinner, 109. 

Agriculture, its relation to tlie 
English textile industry, 62, 
64-65. 

Alabama, consumption of cotton, 
43. 

Alcohol, used for fuel, 91. 

Alexander, the Great, brings knowl- 
edge of silk-making to Europe, 
46. 

Alexander, Joseph, weaves cor- 
duroy at Providence, 162, 230. 

Algonquin Indians, weaving by, 22. 

Alizarine, produced artificially, 118. 

Allen, John, establishes cotton 
mill at Centreville, R.I., 178. 

Almy, Brown and Slater, Providence, 
partnership formed, 171; con- 
struct Arkwright machinery, 172; 
seek government aid, 173; use 
cotton warp, 173; build "Old 
Slater Mill" for spinning, 174; 
payment and discipline of em- 
ployees, 174; markets for yarn, 
174-175, 176; buy Centreville 
cotton mill, 178, 

American colonies, silk industry 
in, 51-52. 

American Linen Company, Fall 
River, 229. 

American Manufactory, Philadel- 
phia, earliest cotton and woolen 
manufactory in America, 215. 

American Print Works, Fall River, 
largest in America, 228. 

American Printing Company, Fall 
River, 228. 



American Woolen Company, 221. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, cited, 47. 

Amoskeag Manufacturing Com- 
pany, incorporated, 241; lays 
out Manchester, 241; wages of 
employees, 241; growth of the 
industry, 241. 

Amsterdam, N. Y., a textile centre, 
210; value of product, 211; his- 
tory of, 245-246; hosiery mills, 
245, 246; carpet mills, 245; knit 
goods, 245; value of output, 
246. 

Aniline dyes, discovery and nature 
of, 118. 

Anthony, Daniel, manufactures 
cotton in Rhode Island, 161, 230. 

Anthony, Richard, makes textile 
machines, 161. 

Appleton, Nathan, meets Lowell 
in Edinburgh, 193; sells Wal- 
tham goods, 197; names Lowell, 
Mass., 205 ; stockholder of Essex 
Company, 220, 221; president 
of the Stark Mill, 241. 

Appleton Company, established, 
209. 

Apprentice system, 65-66; tried 
by Slater, 174. 

Argentine Republic, production 
of wool in 1909, 31. 

Aristotle, cited, 46. 

Arkwright, Richard, the "father of 
the factory system," 68, 69, 73; 
erects first practical cotton mill in 
the world, 68; sketch of, 78-83; 
Carlyle's description of, 79; 
early life, 79-80; his spinning 
frame and other inventions, 
80-81; his machines destroyed, 
82; infringement of his patents, 
82; knighted, 83; his machines 
first used in America, 173, 244. 



254 



INDEX 



Arnold, Asa, invents Compound 
Gear, 108. 

Arnold, James, builds mill at 
Woonsoeket, 246. 

Arnold, Joseph, starts Woonsoeket 
cotton industry, 246. 

Arrian, mentions cotton, 36. 

Atlantic Cotton Mills, Lawrence, 
221. 

Aurelian, Emperor, calls silk ex- 
travagant, 47. 

Australia, production of wool in 
1909, 31. 

Bailey, John, makes textile ma- 
chines, 161. 

Baldwin III., Count, establishes 
first weavers at Ghent, 22. 

Ballou, Dexter, constructs textile 
machines at Woonsoeket, 246- 
247. 

Baltimore, Md., manufacturers pe- 
tition for duty on cotton, 188; 
cotton manufactory established, 
188-189. 

Bancroft, Edward, perfects dyeing 
machinery, 118. 

Barbadoes, exchanges cotton and 
rum for slaves, 127. 

Barr, Robert and Alexander, re- 
ceive aid from Massachusetts for 
textile machinery, 151, 152, 153; 
"The State Models," 153. 

Barrett, Charles, proprietor of New 
Ipswich Mill, 179. 

Bartlett, Edmund, founder of the 
Essex Company, 220. 

Basket weaving, in ancient times, 
14, 15-16; at Wellfleet, 22. 

Basyer, produces artificial indigo, 
118. 

Batchelder, Samuel, invents the 
stop-motion, 109; quoted, 244. 

Bay State Mills, Lawrence, 221. 

Bayeux tapestry, 26. 

Beaumont, James, cited, 235. 

Bell, John, invents power loom, 
106. 

Bell, Thomas, discovers plate and 
cylinder printing, 120. 

Belts, leather, first used at Lowell, 
110. 



Bennett, Thomas, tries to start 
cotton mill in Georgia, 237; 
decides to try New Bedford, 
237; superintendent of the Wam- 
sutta Mills, 238; success of his 
enterprise, 238-239. 

BerthoUet, Claude Louis, his ex- 
periments in bleaching cloth, 
114; experiments in dyeing, 117. 

Beverly, Mass., early cotton mill, 
179. 

Beverly Cotton Manufactory, may 
have been first cotton mill in 
America, 149, 150; instigated 
by the Bridgewater experiments, 
153-154; incorporated, 155; raw 
cotton imported, 154; secures 
a trade- mark, 155; the mill 
erected, 155; described, 156; ex- 
penditures, 156-157; legislative 
grant, 157; visited by Washing- 
ton, 157-158; first textile adver- 
tising, 159; Beverly corduroys, 
159; the industry discontinued, 
159. 

Bible, mentions textile art, 17; 
flax, 26; cotton, 36. 

Billston, James, earliest reference 
to English cotton manufacture, 
37. 

Bishop, John Leander, his "His- 
tory of Manufactures," cited, 
131. 

Blackman, Charles, early tailor, 
212. 

Bleaching, history of, 111-115; 
bleaching with milk, 112; in the 
sun, 113, 176, 208; laws against 
stealing of linen, 113; premium 
offered in Scotland, 113; Home's 
sulphuric acid process, 113-114; 
the chlorine process, 114-115; 
method of at Slater's mills, 176. 

Block printing, process of, 119-120, 
232. See also Printing, 

Blodgett, Samuel, builds canal at 
Derryfield, 239; tries to develop 
the water power there, 239; 
Manchester named in honor of 
him, 239-240. 

Board, his experiments in dyeiug, 
117. 



INDEX 



^55 



Bombyx, 46, 47. 

Bonvoise, Anthony, introduces the 
distaflF into England, 71. 

Boott, Kirk, secures water priv- 
ileges for Lowell mills, 201 
song written about him, 201 
his life and personality, 202 
attempts upon his life, 202 
treasurer of the Merrimac Com- 
pany, 203, 204; secures en- 
gravers in England, 205. 

Boott Company, established, 209. 

Borden, Holder, 228. 

Borden, William, receives bounty 
on duck, 133. 

Boston, Linen Manufactory House 
established, 134; Linen Men's 
House, 134; spinning craze, 
135-137; Manufactory House 
on Tremont Street erected, 137; 
Society for Promoting Industry 
and Frugality raise money for 
spinning, 136; young women 
spin on the Common, 136; Frog 
Lane, now Boylston Street, 160; 
Holyoke, now Tremont Street, 
160. 

Boston Manufacturing Company. 
See The Waltham Company. 

Boston Sail Cloth Factory, history 
of, 159-160; described by Wash- 
ington, 160. 

Boulton, Mathew, partner of James 
Watt, 100. 

Bourne, E. A., 221. 

Bow, Eng., early dye works there, 
117. 

Bowditch, William, comments on 
the Waltham speeder, 195. 

Bowdoin, Mr., examines textile 
machinery, 151. 

Bowers, Mrs. Isaac, sells Waltham 
goods on Cornhill Street, 197. 

Branch, Peter, his inventory men- 
tions home-made cloth, 123. 

Brazil, production of cotton, 35; 
natives use cotton in 1519, 40. 

Brewster, Gilbert, invents the 
Eclipse Speeder, 109. 

Bridgewater, Mass., early textile 
machines made there, 151-153, 
161. 



Brooks, Daniel, erects cotton mill, 
179. 

Broome, Jacob, his cotton mill, 
190. 

Brown, Jeremiah, commission mer- 
chant, 176. 

Brown, John, directs Boston spin- 
ning school, 137; refuses to be 
dispossessed, 137. 

Brown, Moses, of Beverly, founder 
of the Beverly Cotton Manu- 
factory, 155. 

Brown, Moses, of Providence, seeks 
the co-operation of the Beverly 
proprietors, 159, 173; buys tex- 
tile machinery, 162; invites 
Slater to Providence, 170; 
quoted, on Slater's cotton warp, 
173. 

Brown, Obadiah, buys cotton mill 
at Centreville, 178. 

Brown, Smith, buys Full em's stock- 
ing loom, 162; forms partnership 
with Samuel Slater, 171. 

Buckram, manufactured in 1722, 
132. 

Bush, Thomas, 180. 

Button, John, makes children's 
hose, 218. 

Byfield, Newburyport Woolen 
Manufactory established, 165- 
166. 

Cabot, Andrew, 155. 

Cabot, Deborah, 155. 

Cabot, George, letter to Alexander 
Hamilton quoted, 149, 154, 156; 
one of the founders of the Bev- 
erly Manufactory, 155; enter- 
tains Washington, 157-158. 

Cabot, Henry, anecdote of Wash- 
ington's visit, 157. 

Cabot, John, purchases site of 
Beverly Manufactory, 155. 

Calico, brought from India, 36, 38; 
woven by Arkwright, 81; print- 
ing of, 119; first in America 
printed by John Hewson, 140, 
215; printing in Rhode Island, 
162; printed at Lowell, 205, 206. 

Cam, John, stocking weaver, 
212. 



^56 



INDEX 



Cap Spinner. See Danforth, 
Charles. 

Capital, combination of, cause of 
modern factory system, 60, 66, 67. 

Carding machine, Kay's, 74; 
Paul's, 77; Crompton's, 86; 
constructed by Earl, 172; man- 
ufactured at Philadelphia, 
215-216; constructed by John 
Daniel, 244. 

Carlyle, Thomas, his essay on 
Chartism cited, 69; quoted, 79. 

Caroline, Queen of England, has 
dress of Georgia silk, 52. 

Carpenter, Ezekiel, his fulling mill 
at Pawtucket, 172, 173. 

Carpet, industry in Philadelphia, 
216-217, 218; first manufact- 
urer of, 216; Turkish and Ax- 
minster, 216-217; floor carpets 
and oil cloths, 217; Brussels, 
217; industry in Amsterdam, 
N.Y., 245, 246. 

Cartwright, Edmund, 69, 73; 
sketch of, 88-92; his power 
loom, 88-90, 91; early life and 
education, 90-91; his person- 
ality, 91; his other inventions, 
91-92; his machines set on fire, 
92. 

Cecil, Sir William, 49. 

Cecil Manufacturing Company, 
Elkton, Md., its history, 189. 

Centre ville, R.I., second cotton 
mill in Rhode Island, 178; ma- 
chines copied from Slater's, 178. 

Chambers's "Book of Days," 
quoted, 100. 

Champlain, Samuel de, says Indi- 
ans wear cotton, 41. 

Chapman, Isaac, 155. 

Chelmsford, original name of Low- 
ell, 201. 

Cheney Brothers, their silk in- 
dustry, 57. 

Chevreul, Michael Eugene, experi- 
ments in dyeing, 117. 

Chew, his "History of the King- 
dom of Cotton," etc., cited, 146. 

Children, in cotton mills, 69, 78, 
81, 174, 199, 200, 207-208, 244, 
252. 



China, method of hand weaving, 
21; source of cotton industry, 
35; early home of silk industry, 
45. 

Chlorine, used in bleaching, 114- 
115. 

City Manufacturers, New Bedford 
and, 239. 

Clark, Thomas M., secures water 
privileges for Lowell mills, 201. 

Clarke, Mr., examines textile ma- 
chinery, 151. 

Clay, Henry, 56. 

Clayton, Messrs., establish first 
printing plant in Lancashire, 
119. 

Clegg, Edward, 215. 

Cochineal, use of, 117. 

Colbert, Jean Baptiste, his interest 
in French silk industry, 49; 
published instructions in dyeing, 
117. 

Colchester, Conn., duck manu- 
facture, 160-161. 

Colchester, Eng., early woolen mill 
there, 68, 74. 

Colonial Assembly offers bounties 
for raw silk, 51. 

Colt, Christopher, his silk indus- 
tries, 56, 236. 

Colt, Peter, 163; superintendent 
of the Paterson mills, 235. 

Columbus, Christopher, first men- 
tions cotton in America, 39. 

Commission merchants, first ones, 
175, 176. 

Compound Gear, invented by Asa 
Arnold, 108; EngUsh patents 
stolen, 108. 

Conestoga Print Works, 218. 

Confraville, perfects dyeing ma- 
chinery, 118. 

Connecticut, its silk industry es- 
tablished, 52-55; start of the 
cotton industry in, 181-182. 

Connecticut, General Assembly, 
orders the raising of hemp and 
flax, 125; encourages the textile 
industry, 163, 165. 

Connecticut Courant, quoted, 164, 
165. 

Connecticut Journal, quoted, 235. 



INDEX 



257 



Connecticut Silk Manufacturing 
Company, 56. 

Constantinople, its silk industry, 
47-48. 

Corduroy, manufacture of at- 
tempted in Rhode Island, 162. 

Cornbury, Lord, quoted, 132. 

Cornish, John, establishes the first 
worsted mill, 130. 

Cortez, Hernando, brings cottons 
from Mexico, 40-41; brings silk- 
worms to Mexico, 51. 

Corticelli silk, 57. 

Cos, Island of, 46, 47. 

Cotton, known to the Egyptians, 
17; used by Incas, 19; raised 
and woven by Malays, 21 ; crop 
in 1910, 34; derivation of name, 
34; history of, 35-43; plant, 
34, 35; Sea Island cotton, 35, 
145; upland cotton, 35; by- 
products of, 35; cotton produc- 
ing countries of the world, 35; 
known in England at an early 
date, 37; exported from Eng- 
land, 38; mentioned by Colum- 
bus, 39; first mention of in 
United States, 41; great stimu- 
lus given by American Revolu- 
tion, 41; first manufactory of 
in America at Rowley, 42; sta- 
tistics of cotton industry, 42-43; 
first cotton mills, 68; first use 
of water power, 68 ; whole opera- 
tion of spinning first carried on 
in one mill, 68, 81; separated 
from the seed by hand, 101, 208; 
invention of the cotton gin, 
101-105; American colonists 
exchange slaves for West Indian 
cotton, 123, 127; "Desire" and 
"Trial" bring cotton to New 
England, 123; Massachusetts 
General Court encourages its 
manufacture, 124; finer grades 
brought from England, 138- 
139; statistics of in England, 
142-143; its cultivation in the 
Southern States, 143-144, 146, 
225; origin and spread of Sea 
Island cotton, 145-147; ex- 
ported to England, 146-147; 



laid by hand, 173; thread first 
made in America, 175; manu- 
facture of in the South, 187-191; 
first cloth made entirely by 
power, 194; tariff on, 55, 197, 
217, 232. See Spinning, Weav- 
ing. 

Cotton gin, invented by Eli Whit- 
ney, 101-105; increases cotton 
production, 146. 

Coutrai, Belgium, produces best 
prepared flax, 27. 

Coxal cloth, 71. 

Coxe, Tench, his attempt to secure 
English textile machines, 141- 
142; encourages cotton raising 
in the South, 143-144, 146; 
organizes The Pennsylvania So- 
ciety for the Encouragement of 
Manufactures, 148. 

Crabbe, George, quoted, 91. 

Cranch, Richard, examines textile 
machinery, 151-152. 

Crank, or Scotch, loom. See Loom. 

Crocker, Samuel, manufactures 
cotton at Taunton, 180. 

Cromford, mills there first to have 
whole process of cotton spinning, 
68, 81. 

Crommelin, Louis, 27. 

Crompton, Samuel, 73; sketch of, 
83-88; his "mule," 83, 84-86; 
hides his machine, 85; makes 
his inventions public, 86; in- 
vents carding machine, 86; 
receives grant from Parliament, 
87; his personality, 87-88; his 
mule first used in America, 
244. 

Cromwell, Oliver, grants charter to 
hosiery trade, 93; prohibits ex- 
port of wool from England, 128- 
129. 

Cumberland, R.I., cotton mill 
there, 179. 

Cylinder card machine, used in 
Arkwright's mill, 68. 

Dambourney, perfects dyeing ma- 
chinery, 118. 
Dana, Dr. Samuel L., 205. 
Dandy loom. See Loom. 



258 



INDEX 



Danforth, Charles, invents the 
Cap Spinner, 108; his English 
patents stolen, 108-109. 

Danforth, George, invents the 
Taunton Speeder, 109; his 
speeder used in Rhode Island, 
199. 

Daniel, John, constructs cotton 
machinery, 244. 

Daughters of Liberty, Providence, 
R.I., adopt spinning, 138, 230. 

Davenport, James, receives first 
American patent on textile ma- 
chinery, 108; establishes the 
Globe'Mills, 108. 

Davol, William C, smuggles Eng- 
lish mules to America, 228-229; 
installs them in Fall River, 229. 

DeFoe, Daniel, quoted, 65. 

Delaware, its silk industry, 53. 

DepouUy, develops the merceriz- 
ing process, 121. 

Derby, Eng., silk mill erected, 
1719, 51; hosiery mills there, 95. 

Derwent River, supplies power for 
cotton mills, 68, 81. 

Design, Art of, among Incas, 19; 
among hand weavers of China 
and India, 21-22. 

"Desire," ship, brings cotton to 
Salem, 123. 

Devonshire kerseys, 71. 

Dexter, Andrew, manufactures cot- 
ton in Rhode Island, 161, 230; 
sells machines to Moses Brown, 
162, 172. 

Diaper, origin of word, 26. 

Dickens, Charles, describes Lowell 
mills, 207-208. 

Dickson, David, began cotton man- 
ufacture in New York, 243-244; 
his mill described, 244; em- 
ployees and wages, 244; uses 
Arkwright machinery, 244 ; 
water power of his mill, 244; 
enterprise a failure, 244. 

Dimity, 37; made by American 
colonists. 126. 

Dionysius, cited, 47. 

DistaflF, used in remotest times, 71; 
description of, 71. 

Distaflf side, 73. 



Dorsey, John, makes carpets and 
oil cloths, 217. 

Double Speeder, invented at Wal- 
tham, 195. 

Draper, George & Sons, Hopedale, 
Mass., instigate the invention 
of the Northrop loom, 110-111. 

Draper Company, Hopedale, Mass., 
110. 

Drebels, Cornelis van, discovers 
method of dyeing with cochineal, 
117. 

Dressing machine, constructed at 
Waltham, 195; rollers made 
from soapstone, 195. 

Drop-box, invented by Robert 
Kay, 76. 

Duck, woven on eight looms in 
1724, 132; bounty on granted, 
133; manufactured in Boston, 
160; other attempts, 160-161. 

Dufay, experiments in dyeing, 117. 

Durfee, Joseph, Col., organizes the 
Globe Mill, 222, 223; served in 
the Revolution, 223; his mills 
described, 223; his undertaking 
a failure, 224; dies poor, 224. 

Dutch boy, improved by Kay, 
74. 

Dyeing, evidences of in earliest 
times, 16-18; among Incas of 
Peru, 19; its history, 116-119; 
knowledge of brought to Europe 
from the Orient, 116; cultiva- 
tion of dye plants, 117; dis- 
covery of cochineal dyeing, 117; 
discovery of aniline dyes, 118; 
perfection of dyeing machinery, 
118; process of, 118-119. 

Dyer, Mr., of Manchester, Eng., 
patents the Taunton speeder, 
109. 

Dyers' Company of London, in- 
corporated, 117. 

Earl, Pliny, makes cards for Slater's 
mill, 172. 

East Greenwich, Conn., stocking 
manufacture, 162; calico print- 
ing, 162, 231, 232. 

East India Company, controversy 
over calico, 38-39. 



INDEX 



259 



Eau de Javel, used in bleaching, 
114. 

Eclipse Speeder, invented by Gil- 
bert Brewster, 109; used in Eng- 
land, 109. 

Edict of Nantes, revocation of, 
gives impetus to textile indus- 
tries of Ireland and England, 
27, 39, 49, 50. 

Edward III. restricts sheep rais- 
ing, 33; restricts merchants to 
one line, 48; incorporates the 
Dyers' Company, 117. 

Edward VI., his silk stockings, 50. 

Egypt, production of cotton, 17, 35. 

Electricity, in textile mills, 69. 

Elizabeth, Queen, imports Flemish 
weavers, 23; permits free expor- 
tation of wool, 33; wears silk 
stockings, 50, 94; refuses patents 
to Wm. Lee, 93. 

Employees, early relation with 
employer, 65, 69; in Slater's 
mills, 174; care of at Waltham, 
196; treatment of under the 
Waltham and Rhode Island 
systems, 199-200; care of at 
Lowell, 206-208; Fall River 
hours of work and wages, 223, 
226, 227; plan for at Paterson, 
234; increased production of the 
individual, 249-250; foreigners 
supplant the native-born, 250- 
251; lower standards of living, 
251; improved condition of 
labor, 251. 

Employer. See Employees. 

England, progress of woolen in- 
dustry, 23, 32-34; spinning 
schools, 27; a wool-producing 
country, 30; immigrations of 
Flemish weavers, 33; sheep 
raising restricted, 33; early ref- 
erences to its cotton manu- 
facture, 37; trade in cotton, 
38; silk industry in, 49-51; its 
textile industry in relation to 
agriculture, 62, 64-65; middle 
class formed, 70; export of 
wool prohibited, 128-129; ex- 
port of wool from the colonies 
prohibited, 130; imports 



American cotton, 146-147; ad- 
vantages for cotton industry, 
193; economic and social as- 
pects of the textile industry, 
247-248. 

English Equation Box, 108. 

Essex Company, The, Lawrence, 
220-221. 

Essex Gazette, quoted, 128. 

Estes, Edward, 227. 

Europe, production of wool in 1909, 
31. 

Evans, Oliver, manufactures 
cards, 215. 

Exeter, N.H., duck manufacture, 
161. 

Factory System, 59-70; English 
guilds forerunners of modern 
factory system, 59; skill, capital, 
and machinery causes of system, 
60; Roman household embryo 
factory, 60; trace of in mediae- 
val Italy, 60; John Winch- 
combe's factory first in England, 
61; English farm first seat of 
textile industry, 62; its begin- 
ning appears in separation of 
processes, 62; artisans concen- 
trate in hamlets, 65; relations 
of employer and employee, 65- 
68, 251; developed by era of in- 
ventions, 68; effect upon English 
society, 69-70. 

Fall River, leads in cotton pro- 
duction, 210, 222, 229; value of 
production, 211; growth since 
1800, 222; development due to 
climate and water power, 222; 
the Globe Mill, 222-224; other 
mills started, 224-225, 227-229; 
cotton brought from the South, 
225; market for and character 
of cotton products, 227; first 
print works there, 228; Ameri- 
can Print Works, largest in 
America, 228; steam first used, 
228; first to use self-acting 
mules, 228. 

Fall River Iron Works, 228. 

Fall River Manufactory, 224-225; 
power looms used, 226; hours 



260 



INDEX 



of work and wages, 226; picking, 
warping, and roping, 226, 227. 

Feathers, woven by Algonquins, 22. 

Ferguson, James, his method of 
bleaching with lime, 114. 

Fernandina, Island of, natives use 
cotton, 40. 

Ferrero, Guglielmo, quoted, 60. 

Filling throstle, invented at Wal- 
tham, 195. 

Fire-proof mill, first ever built, 81. 

Fisher, Joshua, buys site for 
Beverly Manufactory, 155. 

Flax, known to the Egyptians, 
17; one of first materials used 
in spinning, 24; flax plant, 
24-25 ; preparation of, 25 ; Russia 
produces largest amount, 27; 
Belgian flax best prepared, 27; 
spun by machinery, 27; Ameri- 
can grown for seed only, 28; 
production in various countries 
for 1909, 28; invention of ma- 
chines for spinning, 98; its cult- 
ure encouraged by legislative 
acts, 124, 125; imported by col- 
onists, 128; raised by the col- 
onists, 131. See Linen, Spinning. 

Florence, Mass., silk industry es- 
tablished there, 56-57. 

Fly shuttle, invented by John Kay, 
74-75; first used in America, 
153; first used in Rhode Island, 
162. 

Francis, James B., stockholder, 
220. 

Frankford Woolen Mills, 218. 

FuUem, John, his stocking loom, 
162, 231. 

Fuller, Thomas, his "Worthies of 
England" quoted, 61, 62. 

Fulling mills, erected in Massa- 
chusetts, 129-130. 

Fustians, made from both cotton 
and wool, 37, 38; made by 
American colonists, 126. 

Gazette and Country Journal, 

quoted, 231. 
Gazette of the United States, quoted, 

on Boston Sail Cloth Factory, 

159-160. 



Gennes, M. de, tries to improve the 
loom, 73. 

Georgia, cultivation of cotton in, 
41; fourth in consumption of 
cotton, 43; progress of its silk 
industry, 52. 

German town, 130; Mennonite 
stocking industry, 212; early 
woolen industry, 21^; hand 
stocking weavers, 212; first knit- 
ting mill in America, 212; Eng- 
lish knitters come, 212; knitting 
mills, 218. 

Germantown Hosiery Mills, 218. 

Gilmore, William, introduces power 
loom into Rhode Island, 184, 
198; his loom compared with 
the Waltham loom, 184, 199; 
sells his drawings, 184. 

Globe Mill, Fall River, organized 
by Col. Joseph Durfee, 222- 
223; division of stock, 223; orig- 
inal mill burned, 223; second 
mill described, 223; cleaning 
and weaving done outside, 223; 
some power used, 223; wages 
and hours of labor, 223; prod- 
uct crude, 224; enterprise a 
failure, 224; mill used as print 
works, 224; present owner, 
224. 

Globe Mills, Philadelphia, one of 
the first to use water power, 
108; mules installed, 216. 

Globe Yarn and Laurel Lake Mills 
Company, 224. 

Gobelia Dye Works, Paris, 117. 

Golding, Edmund, helps to estab- 
lish the Mansfield Silk Company, 
54; builds second mill at Mans- 
field, 55. 

Goodhue, Benjamin, 154. 

Graebe, produces vegetable dyes, 
118. 

Grain, grinding of encouraged, 
125; decrease in value, 125. 

Green, Col. Job, establishes cotton 
mill at Centreville, R.I., 178. 

Green, Timothy, forms partnership 
with Slater, 175. 

Greene, Mrs. Nathanael, aids Eli 
Whitney, 103-104. 



INDEX 



261 



Greene, W. R., sets up first carpet 
loom at Amsterdam, 245. 

Gresham, Sir Thomas, 49. 

Grimsliaw, Messrs., their factory 
burned by mob, 92. 

Grinnell, Joseph, aids New Bed- 
ford cotton industry, 237-238; 
president of the Wamsutta Mills, 
238. 

Guilds, for weavers, 33; as a fore- 
runner of the modern factory sys- 
tem, 59, 65. 

Gurleyville, Conn., silk mills there, 
54; silk dyers at, 55. 

Haarlem, a bleaching centre, 
112. 

Hall, Samuel, manufactures buck- 
ram, 132. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 149, 154, 
156; mentions the Slater Mill, 
174; founder of Paterson, 233. 

Hamilton Manufacturing Com- 
pany established, 208. 

Hanks, Rodney and Horatio, build 
first American silk mill, 54. 

Hargreaves, James, 34; his un- 
successful cotton mill, 68, 73; 
sketch of, 77-78; helps make 
carding machine, 77; his spin- 
ning jenny, 77-78. 

Hartford Woolen Manufactory, 
first large woolen mill in Amer- 
ica organized, 163; receives 
State aid, 163, 165; weaves suit 
for Washington, 163-164; qual- 
ity of its products, 163-165; sold 
at auction, 165. 

Harvard College, Senior Class wear 
homespun, 138. 

Hatchelling, 24. 

Haverhill, Mass., duck manufact- 
ure, 161. 

Hazard, Rowland, starts a fulling 
mill, 186; begins weaving cloth, 
186; first to use water power, 
186; Peace Dale Manufacturing 
Company, 187. 

Heard, Augustine, establishes stock- 
ing mills at Ipswich, 95. 

Heathcote, Caleb, quoted, 132. 

Heckling, 25. 



Heliogabalus, Emperor, wears thin 
silk, 47. 

Hellot, Jean, 117. 

Hemp, products of in America in 
1909, 28; the native product 
used by the colonists, 125; 
Connecticut General Assembly 
orders the raising of, 125; im- 
ported by colonists, 128; raised 
by the colonists, 131; bounties 
on granted, 133. 

Hemptinne, M. Jean de, quoted, 34. 

Henry II. inaugurates cloth fair 
at St. Bartholomew, 33; es- 
tablishes weavers' guilds, 33; 
legislates for advancement of 
woolen manufacture, 33. 

Henry IV. of Navarre, establishes 
mulberry-trees in France, 49; 
invites William Lee to bring his 
inventions to France, 94. 

Henry, Thomas, discovers chlorine 
bleaching process, 115; perfects 
dyeing machinery, 118. 

Herodotus, makes first mention of 
cotton, 36. 

Herrick, Joshua, employed at Bev- 
erly, 156. 

Hewson, John, first calico printer, 
140, 215; reward offered for his 
head, 140. 

Higginson, Henry, 155. 

High, Thomas, his claims to Ark- 
wright's inventions, 80, 82. 

Hill, H. A., his Memoir of Abbott 
Lawrence quoted, 220. 

Hinckley Knitting Mills, 218. 

Hogg, William, 218. 

Holden, R., his method of bleaching 
with kelp, 113. 

HoUingsworth, Col. Henry, manu- 
factures woolens, 189. 

Home, Francis, his method of 
bleaching with sulphuric acid, 
113-114; perfects dyeing ma- 
chinery, 118. 

Homer, first mentions weaving, 
18. 

Hopkinson, Thomas, stockholder, 
219. 

Horrocks, William, invents the 
crank, or Scotch, loom, 106; basis 



262 



INDEX 



of the Waltham loom, 106, 195; 
his loom introduced into Rhode 
Island, 184. 

Horstmann, W. H., manufactures 
silk, 213. 

Horstmann, William J., constructs 
power looms, 213. 

Hosiery. See Stockings. 

Houldsworth, Henry, Jr., takes out 
patent on Asa Arnold's inven- 
tion, 108; patents Samuel Batch- 
elder's stop-motion, 109-110. 

"Huguenot," clipper ship, lost off 
Java, 21. 

Humphreys, Col. David, brings 
merinos to America, 30. 

Hurd, Duane Hamilton, his His- 
tory of Middlesex County 
quoted, 194. 

India, methods of hand weaving, 
21; source of cotton industry, 
36, 37; learns silk industry from 
Chinese, 46. 

India, British, second in produc- 
tion of cotton, 35. 

Indians, American, weaving, 20; 
Algonquin feather weaving, 
22. 

Indigo, artificially produced, 118. 

International Congress of Cotton 
Manufacturers, 34. 

Ipswich, Mass., John Manning's 
woolen mill, 166. 

Ipswich Mills, history of, 95-96. 

Jack of Newbury. See Winch- 
combe, John. 

Jackson, Daniel, makes textile ma- 
chines, 161. 

Jackson, Patrick Tracy, establishes 
The Waltham Company, 192, 
193, 194; care of employees, 
196; shareholder of the Essex 
Company, 220. 

Jacquard, Joseph Marie Charles, 
sketch of his life and inventions, 
96-98; his machine for making 
fish-nets receives gold medal, 
96; his interview with Napoleon, 
97; his loom, 97; his loom first 
used in America, 213. 



James I., of England, sends silk- 
worms to Virginia, 51. 

Jarvis, William, brings merinos 
to America, 30. 

Jefferson, Thomas, letter to M. de 
Warville quoted, 144; cited, 
147; inaugurated in American 
woolens, 189. 

Jenks, Alfred, makes cotton ma- 
chinery, 216. 

Johnson, Edward, his "Wonder- 
working Providence" cited, 42; 
quoted, 126. 

Johnson, Thomas, invents the 
dandy loom, 106-107. 

Johnson, Sir William, his mill at 
Amsterdam, 245. 

Joint Stock Company, first one 
organized at Philadelphia, 215. 

Jones, Aaron, 218. 

Justinian, Emperor, his decree 
ruins silk merchants, 47; estab- 
lishes silk industry in Europe, 
47, 48. 

Jute, products of in America in 
1909, 28. / 

Kay, John, 34, 73; sketch of, *^ 
74-76; improves the reed, 74; 
his fly shuttle, 74-75; infringe- 
ment of his patents, 75 ; mobbed 
because of his inventions, 75-76; 
English government refuses him 
aid, 76; dies in France, 76. 

Kay, John, clock maker of Warren- 
ton, assists Arkwright, 78, 80; 
witness against Arkwright, 82. 

Kay, Robert, invents drop-box, 
76. 

Kelp, used for bleaching, 113. 

Kendrew, John, inventor of ma- 
chines for spinning flax, 98. 

Kentucky, cotton mills, 190. 

Knitting, early history of, 92-93; 
Rev. Wm. Lee invents knitting 
machine, 93; Queen Elizabeth 
refuses him patents, 93-94; Lee 
constructs a machine for making 
silk stockings, 94 ; Strutt's ribbed 
stocking frame, 94; first mill 
in America, 212; workmen 
brought under one roof, 212; 



INDEX 



263 



English workmen come to Ger- 
mantown, 212; mills at Phila- 
delphia, 218. 

Labor. See Employees, Wages. 

Lafayette blue, 218. 

Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, 
ruins contain rude fabrics, 15. 

Lancaster, Eng., 34 ; causes of con- 
centration of textile industry in, 
63-64. 

Lathrop and Eells, Norwich, Conn., 
181-182. 

Lawrence, Abbott, 209; stock- 
holder of Merrimac Water Power 
Association, 219; Lawrence 
named for him, 220; founder of 
the Essex Company, 220, 221; 
memoir of, quoted, 220; buys 
rights of the Water Power Com- 
pany, 220-221; president of 
the Pacific Mills, 221. 

Xawrence, Amos A., 56; operates 
his millsat a loss, Q5, 209. 

Lawrence, Charles, offers woolens 
for sale, 212. 

Lawrence, John S., compares old 
and new methods of production, 
250. 

Lawrence, Samuel, stockholder, 
219, 220. 

Lawrence, William, stockholder, 
220. 

Lawrence, Mass., leads in produc- 
tion of worsted goods, 210; value 
of production, 211; Daniel Saun- 
ders discovers and secures the 
water powers, 218-219; Merri- 
mac Water Power Association, 
219, 220-221; naming the town, 
219-220; the Essex Company, 
220-221; great dam built, 221; 
town laid out, 221; the Wash- 
ington Mill, 221; other mills 
started, 221; population and 
textile statistics, 222. 

Lawrence and Co., agents of Whit- 
tenton Cotton Mills, 180. 

Lawrence Company, established, 
209. 

Lebermann, produces vegetable 
dyes, 118, 



Lee, Rev. William, his stocking 
machines, 93-94; Queen Eliza- 
beth refuses him patents, 93-94; 
goes to France, 94. 

Leffingwell, Christopher, weaves 
stockings, 181. 

Leigh, Lewis, first successful silk 
dyer in United States, 55. 

L'Enfant, Major, superintendent 
of the Paterson Mills, 234-235. 

Leonard, James and Henry, em- 
ployed at Beverly, 154, 155; es- 
tablish Iron Works at Taunton, 
Mass., 180. 

Levering, Wigert, early weaver, 
211-212. 

Lewis, Joseph, his weaving mill at 
Waterbury, Conn., 132. 

Lilly, Alfred, makes silk machinery, 
54. 

Lincoln, Jonathan Thayer, his 
"The Factory" cited, 70; 
quoted, 249-250. 

Lindly, Joshua, makes textile ma- 
chines, 161. 

Linen, known in prehistoric ages, 
25-26; introduced into Europe 
and Asia, 26 ; mentioned in early 
writings, 26; manufacture of 
in France and Germany in 
eleventh century, 26; exported 
from Flanders in 1250, 26; 
among the Anglo-Saxons, 26-27; 
weaving of in Ireland, 27; weav- 
ing of in Scotland, 27; weaving 
of a Puritan domestic industry, 
27; in America only coarse 
forms successful, 27, 28, 131; 
finest produced in Scotland, 
Ireland, and Belgium, 27; best 
yarn from Holland, 28; great 
linen-producing countries, 28; 
use of cotton decreases demand 
for, 98; printing of at Auers- 
burg, 119; its manufacture en- 
couraged by colonial legislation, 
124-125, 126; manufacture of at 
Germantown, Pa., 130; fabric 
most used by the colonists, 131, 
132; manufactured at Lynn, 
132; bounties on, 133, 138; 
factories erected, 187; made in 



264 



INDEX 



Fall River, 229; manufactured 
in New York, 242, 243. See 
Flax, Spinning. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, his "Some 
Early Memories" cited, 157-158. 

Lombe, John, builds silk mill at 
Derby, 50. 

Loom, used in Bronze Age, 16; of 
Licas, 19, 20; Chinese legend re- 
garding, 45 ; loom for piece goods 
built, 55; Jacquard loom first 
used in Philadelphia, 55, 213; 
owned by weavers, 66; Cart- 
wright's power loom, 69, 89-90, 
106; attempts to improve it, 
73-74; Kay's improvements, 
74-75; looms invented, 106; 
the dandy loom, 106-107; Hor- 
rocks's basis of first practical 
American loom, 106, 184; ex- 
tended use of power loom, 107, 
184; invention and character- 
istics of the Northrop loom, 110- 
111; comparison of Gilmore's 
and the Waltham loom, 184, 
194-195; Horstmann's power 
loom, 213; Jenks's power loom 
for checks, 216; in early Fall 
River mills, 226. See Weaving. 

Lowe, H. A., discovers a method of 
procuring silk lustre, 121. 

Lowell, Francis Cabot, his Wal- 
tham loom compared with Gil- 
more's, 184; establishes The 
Waltham Company, 192, 194; 
birth and education, 193; brings 
home knowledge of English tex- 
tile machines, 193; his power 
loom, 194, 195; his other inven- 
tions, 195; interview with Mr. 
Shepard, of Taunton, 195-196; 
secures a tariff on cotton, 197; 
urges Rhode Island mill owners 
to use power loom, 198; his ar- 
rangement of textile processes, 
198; his system of mill organiza- 
tion, 198; shareholder of the 
Essex Company, 220. 

Lowell, John A., stockholder, 220; 
buys rights of the Merrimac 
Water Power Association, 220- 
221. 



Lowell, Mass., mill privileges 
bought by Boott, 201, 202; Mer- 
rimac Manufacturing Company 
established, 203-204 ; naming of, 
205; growth of, 205; other cot- 
ton mills started, 208-209; cot- 
ton statistics for 1911, 209; a 
textile centre, 210; value of tex- 
tile products, 211. 

Lowell Company established, 209. 

Lyman, Daniel, introduces power 
loom into Rhode Island, 184, 
198; his mill at Woonsocket, 
246. 

Lyman, George W., stockholder, 
220. 

Lyman, Theodore, stockholder, 
220. 

Macauley, Isaac, makes oil cloths, 
217. 

Mack, Alexander, stocking weaver, 
212. 

McKerries, James, weaves cordu- 
roy in East Greenwich, 162, 230. 

Macquer, his experiments in dye- 
ing, 117. 

McRae, John, makes silk fringes, 
etc., 56. 

Madison, James, quoted, 144; 
inaugurated in American broad- 
cloth, 167. 

Magellan, Ferdinand, 40. 

Malays, method of weaving cotton, 
21. 

Manchester, Eng., a textile cen- 
tre, 34, 38, 39; climate favors 
textile industry, 63; weavers 
wear five-pound notes, 87; 
steam looms used there, 107. 

Manchester, N.H., a textile centre, 
210; value of production, 211; 
its history, 239-241; named in 
honor of Samuel Blodgett, 239- 
240; Benjamin Pritchard's cot- 
ton mill, 240; Amoskeag Cotton 
and Wool Manufactory, 240-241 ; 
Amoskeag Manufacturing Com- 
panj^ 241; town laid out, 241; 
wages, 241; growth, 241. 

Mansfield, Conn., its silk industry, 
53-55. 



INDEX 



265 



Marble, Ezra, makes printing ma- 
chine, 228. 

Marquesas Islands, natives make 
Tappa cloth by beating, 20. 

Maryland, its silk industry, 53; 
first woolen mill, 189. 

Maryland Journal, cited, 188. 

Massachusetts, leads in consump- 
tion of cotton, 43; appoints 
committee to investigate textile 
machinery, 151-152; grants to 
inventors, 152-153; acquires 
"The State Models," 153; its 
textile industry just before 
Slater, 167; first use of Ark- 
wright's machines, 176; textile 
statistics for 1812, 185. 

Massachusetts Bay Colony, Gen- 
eral Court passes acts to help 
the textile industry, 124-125, 
129, 136; sheep raising in, 
129; wool exported in 1675, 
130. 

Massachusetts Company, The, es- 
tablished, 209. 

Massasoit Steam Mill, 228. 

Mause, Daniel, hosier, 214. 

Mellish, John, cited on Philadel- 
phia industries, 216. 

Mennonites, start hosiery industry 
at Germantown, 212. 

Mercerizing process, its history 
and application, 120-121. 

The Mercury, Salem, quoted in re- 
gard to the Beverly Cotton Man- 
ufactory, 154, 155-156. 

Merino sheep, breeds of, 30; 
brought to America, 30. 

Merrimac, first name for Lawrence, 
219. 

Merrimac Manufacturing Com- 
pany, established at Lowell, 203 ; 
shareholders, 203; canal system 
improved, 204, 209; mills fitted 
up with Waltham machinery, 
204; first cloth of poor texture 
and color, 204, 206; builds 
mill machinery, 204; cylinder 
printing, 205-206 ; printers 
leave, 206; establish mill board- 
ing-houses, 206; condition of 
employees, 206-208. 



Merrimac Water Power Associa- 
tion, 219, 220-221. 

Metacomet Mill, Fall River, 229. 

Mexico, its cotton industry, 41; 
its silk industry, 51. 

Mill, arrangement established by 
Lowell, 198; organization, 198. 

Miller, Phineas, 105. 

Miller, Robert, invents power loom, 
106. 

Monteith, John, equips his mill 
with power looms, 106. 

Moody, Paul, first to use leather 
belts, 110; constructs power 
loom for Waltham, 194; his 
other inventions, 195; visits 
the Pawtucket Falls, 200, 202- 
203; employed at Lowell, 204. 

Moore, Gov., of New York, cited, 
135, 138, 242. 

Moors, of Spain, first to raise cot- 
ton in Europe, 37. 

Mount Nebo Silk Mills, 57. 

Mulberry-tree, its seeds brought 
to Constantinople from China, 
47, 48; mulberry-tree in France, 
48-49; Chinese mulberry-tree 
brought to United States, 55; 
the "Mulberry Craze," 58. 

Mule, The, invented by Samuel 
Crompton, 83; self-acting first 
used in Fall River, 228; first 
used in America, 244. 

Murray, G. W., his silk mill, 236. 

Muslin brought from India, 36; 
East India muslin made in Eng- 
land, 85. 

Mussey, T. M., builds loom at 
Exeter, N.H., 106. 

Navajo blankets, 20. 

Naz, sheep of, 30. 

Nearchus, cited, 47. 

Nesmith, John, stockholder, 219, 
220. 

New Bedford, produces finest cot- 
ton goods, 210, 239 ; value of pro- 
duction, 211; beginning of its 
cotton industry, 237; prejudice 
against the industry, 237; cap- 
ital raised, 237-238; Wamsutta 
Mills started, 238; success of 



266 



INDEX 



the enterprise, 238-239; Po- 
tomska Mill, 238; other mills 
built, 239; recent textile sta- 
tistics, 239. 

New England, textile industry in, 
122, 138-139; slave traffic with 
the West Indies, 123, 127; silk 
culture in, 138; capital develops 
Southern industries, 191; ad- 
vantages for cotton manufact- 
ure, 193; effect of textile in- 
dustries on shipping, 248-249. 

"New England's First Fruits," 
quoted, 125-126. 

New Hampshire, consumption of 
cotton, 43; first cotton mills in, 
179. 

New Ipswich, first cotton mill in 
New Hampshire erected, 179. 

New Jersey, its silk industry, 53. 

New York, its silk industry, 53; 
Society for the Promotion of 
Arts established, 138, 242; linen 
manufacture in, 138; Society 
for the Encouragement of Amer- 
ican Manufactures, 170; great- 
est centre for cutting up trade, 
210, 245; value of production, 
211, 245 ; Manufacturing Society, 
242-243; Dickson's Cotton Fac- 
tory, 243-244; not suited for 
textile industry, 242, 244. 

New York and Northampton Silk 
Company, The, 56. 

New York Manufacturing Com- 
pany, employs Samuel Slater, 
169; history of, 170, 242-243; 
its object, 242; character of the 
product, 243; factory described 
by Slater, 243; enterprise a 
failure, 243. 

New Zealand, production of wool 
in 1909, 31. 

Newcomen, Thomas, his steam- 
engine perfected by James Watt, 
99-100. 

Newell, Robert, calico printer, 
232. 

News Letter, quoted, 137. 

Nickerson, Capt. Sylvanus, de- 
scribes Malay method of weav- 
ing cotton, 21. 



Nonatuck Silk Company, 56. 
North Carolina, consumption of 

cotton, 43. 
North Saugus, linen factory built, 

187. 
Northrop, James H., invents a 

loom, 110-111. 
Norwich, Conn., early stocking 

weaving there, 181; Lathrop and 

Eells cotton manufactory, 181- 

182. 

Oglethorpe, Gov. James Edward, 
gives silk to Queen Caroline, 
52. 

Oil cloths, made in Philadelphia, 
217. 

Oldham, brings wild hemp from 
Connecticut, 125. 

Oneida County, N.Y., first cotton 
mill erected, 179. 

Opdengrafe, Abraham, receives 
premium for linen, 211. 

Orr, Col. Hugh, early textile ma- 
chinery made at his works, 151, 
153; makes first cannon in 
America, 151; first in America 
to use the fly shuttle, 153. 

Ottolengi, Signor, establishes a silk 
filature in Georgia, 52. 

Oxford Carpet Mills, The, 218. 

Pacific Mills, Lawrence, 221. 

Panic, first one in New England, 
125. 

Parkinson, Adam, perfects print- 
ing method, 120. 

Paterson, N.J., its silk industry, 
55, 210, 236; value of produc- 
tion, 211; founded by the So- 
ciety for the Establishment of 
Useful Manufactures, 233-234; 
naming of, 234; water power 
secured, 234 ; plans for mills and 
workmen's houses, 234; fac- 
tory equipped and opened, 235; 
enterprise a failure, 235; mill 
used for other purposes, 235- 
236; water rights valuable, 236; 
first silk mill, 236; character of 
silk products, 236. 

Paul, Lewis, 73'; his inventions, 77. 



INDEX 



267 



Pawtucket, Slater's mill, 171-175; 
industries affected by the War 
of 1812, 198; a textile centre, 
210; value of production, 211. 

Peace Dale Manufacturing Com- 
pany, its history, 186-187. 

Pearson, John, erects first cloth 
mill in United States, 126. 

Peck, Lewis, manufactures cotton 
in Rhode Island, 161; sells ma- 
chine to Moses Brown, 162, 
172. 

Peel, Sir Robert, offers partnership 
to Crompton, 86. 

Penelope, goddess of weaving, 
18. 

Penn, John, quoted on Philadel- 
phia industries, 214, 216. 

Pennsylvania, its silk industry, 53 ; 
Society for the Encouragement 
of Manufactures, history of, 
148-150; may have established 

- first American cotton mill, 149; 
its textile industry just before 
Slater, 167; encourages home 
industries, 215. 

Pepys, Samuel, quoted, 39. 

Perrot, his process of block print- 
ing, 120. 

Perry, Nathaniel, his linen mill at 
North Saugus, 187. 

Philadelphia, its silk manufacture, 
65; societies for the promotion 
of manufactures established, 
139-140, 148-150, 215; leading 
textile city in United States, 210; 
greatest producer of hosiery and 
knit goods, 210; annual produc- 
tion, 211 ; stocking industry, 212, 
214; woolen industry, 212, 213- 
215; first knitting mill in Amer- 
ica, 212; silk industry, 213; fila- 
tures established, 213; English 
silk throwsters come, 213; Jac- 
quard loom first used, 213; sheep 
killing prohibited, 214; the 
"Hand in Hand" Stocking Man- 
ufactory, 214; home manufac- 
tures encouraged, 214, 216; first 
joint stock company organized, 
215; a centre for textile machin- 
ery, 215-216; its carpet industry. 



216-217; textile statistics, 217- 
218; merchants ask for textile 
tariff, 217. 

Picking machine, Blair's, first used, 
226. 

Pierpont, John, erects mills in Rox- 
bury, 129. 

Pioneer Hosiery Mills, Amster- 
dam, 246. 

Plate speeder, an American in- 
vention, 109. 

Pliny, quoted, 36; cited, 47, 112; 
cited, on art of dyeing, 116. 

Pocasset Manufacturing Company, 
227. 

Polo, Marco, describes cotton, 37. 

Porthouse, Thomas, invents ma- 
chines for spinning flax, 98. 

Potomska Mill, New Bedford, 
238. 

Potter, Nathaniel, receives bounty 
for linen manufacture, 132, 133. 

Prince, John D., 205. 

Printing, its history from the 
earliest times, 119-120; first 
print works in England, 119; 
block printing, 119-120, 232; 
Perrotine, plate, and cylinder 
printing, 120; cylinder printing 
at Lowell, 205-206. 

Pritchard, Benjamin, starts mill 
at Goffstown, N.H., 240; it 
becomes the Amoskeag Com- 
pany, 240. * 

Proprietors of the Locks and 
Canals on the Merrimac River, 
127; its stock sold to the Merri- 
mac Company, 202, 203. 

Providence, R.I., beginning of 
cotton industry, 161-162, 230; 
uses Beverly models, 161, 230; 
attempt to make corduroy, 162, 
231; arrival of Samuel Slater, 
171, 231; Almy, Brown & Slater, 
171-175; first steam mill, 184; 
great textile centre, 210; value 
of production, 211; cotton in- 
dustry in 1789, 231; early 
thread and stocking industries, 
231; calico printing, 231-232; 
textile statistics, 232. 

Prussian blue, 218. 



268 



INDEX 



Rehoboth, Mass., the Slater mill, 
175-176; second mill built, 178. 

Revolution, American, effect on 
American textile industry, 53, 
140-141, 213, 214. 

Rhoades, Alonzo E., invents a 
shuttle-changing loom, 110. 

Rhode Island, consumption of cot- 
ton, 43; beginning of the cotton 
industry, 161-162; use Beverly 
models, 161; attempt to make 
corduroy, 162; manufacture of 
stockings, 162; calico printing, 
162; its textile industry just 
before Slater, 167; Samuel Sla- 
ter's mills, 171-175; second 
cotton mill in, 178; introduc- 
tion of power loom, 184, 199; 
textile statistics for 1812, 185; 
beginning of power woolen mills, 
186-187. See also Providence, 
Woonsocket. 

Rhode Island System versus the 
Waltham System, 198-200. 

Ribbons, manufactory at Balti- 
more, 56. 

Richards, F. G., 215. 

Richards, Mark, 216. 

Richmond, Charles, manufactures 
cotton at Taunton, Mass., 
180. 

Richmond, first print works in 
England there, 119. 

Ridgeway, Mr., improves the 
bleaching processes, 115. 

Ring spinning, developed, 109; 
ring spinner invented by John 
Sharp, 110. 

Rixford, Nathan, builds silk ma- 
chines, 54. 

Robbins, Charles, builds cotton 
mill, 179. 

Roberts, Lewis, his "Treasures of 
Traffic," cited 38. 

Robeson, Andrew, starts first print 
works in Fall River, 228; mill 
develops into the American Print 
Works, 228. 

Robinson, Mrs. Harriet Hanson, 
her "Loom and Spindle " quoted, 
206. 

Rock Day, 73. 



Rogers, Ezekiel, settles at Rowley, 

Mass., 126. 
Rogers, Richard, his duck weaving 

mill, 132. 
Rope-making machine, invented 

by Cartwright, 91. 
Rowley, Mass., site of first cloth 

mill in the United States, 42, 

126-127. 
Royal Society of London, publish 

"An Apparatus, etc., to assist 

Dyers," 117. 
Rucellai, of Florence, make purple 

dye, 116. 
Runge, Ferdinand Friedrich, dis- 
covers aniline dyes, 118. 
"Runs of stone," 127. 
Russell, William, 181. 
Russia, produces largest amount 

of flax, 27; its production of 

cotton, 35. 
Ryle, John, "father of American 

silk industry," builds first loom 

for piece goods, 55; his silk 

mills at Paterson, 236. 

St. Aubon, Guipape de, brings 
white mulberry-tree to France, 
48. 

St. Distaff's Day, 73. 

Salem, Mass., duck manufacture, 
161. 

Sargent, Ignatius, director of the 
Essex Company, 221. 

Saunders, Daniel, discovers and 
secures water power of the 
Merrimac, 218-219; forms the 
Merrimac Water Power Associ- 
ation, 219; names Merrimac, 
219; forms the Essex Company, 
220. 

Saunders, Daniel, Jr., stockholder, 
219, 

Savannah, reeling establishment 
founded there, 52. 

Schaub, Tissot & Dubosque, begin 
calico printing in Providence, 
231-232. 

Scheele, C. W., discovers use of 
chlorine for bleaching, 114. 

Scholfield, Arthur, comes from 
England, 165-166; employed 



INDEX 



269 



by Newburyport Woolen Man- 
ufactory, 166; his woolen mill 
at Pittsfield, 167. 

Scholfield, John, comes from Eng- 
land, 165-166; employed by the 
Newburyport Woolen Manufac- 
tory, 166 ; builds first woolen mill 
in Connecticut, 166; his mill at 
Stonington, Conn., 167; weaves 
broadcloth for the President, 
167. 

Scotland, linen weaving in, 27; 
bleaching, 113. 

Scrutching, 24. 

Seaconnet Mill, Fall River, adopts 
the Northrop loom, 110. 

Semiramis, Queen, 18, 36. 

Shakespeare, William, refers to the 
bleaching process, 112. 

Sharp, John, invents the ring 
spinner, 110. 

Sheep, coat changed from hair to 
wool by breeding, 29; breeds of, 
29-31; first mention of in Eng- 
land, 30; merinos brought to 
America, 30; Lincoln rams, 
31; number raised in 1910, 
31-32; domestic in Britain be- 
fore the Roman Conquest, 32; 
raising restricted in England, 
33; raising of among American 
colonists, 123, 126, 129; their 
exportation from England pro- 
hibited, 129; killing restricted 
in Philadelphia, 214. See also 
Wool. 

Shepard, Benjamin, starts cotton 
mill at Wrentham, Mass., 177- 
178. 

Shepard, Silas, of Taunton, makes 
winding machines, 196. 

Shepard, Mrs., exchanges goods for 
a chaise, 177-178. 

Si-ling-chi, the "Goddess of Silk- 
Worms," 45-46; said to have in- 
vented the loom, 46. 

Silk, derivation of name, 43; 
thought to grow upon trees, 
43; secreted by spiders and 
silkworms, 43-44; statistics of 
production, 44-45; history of, 
45-58; Chinese legend of origin 



of silk making, 45; from China 
the art spreads to Japan and 
Europe, 46, 47-48; used by 
higher classes in Rome, 47; used 
in England, 48; importation 
of prohibited iu England, 48, 
50; trade in France, 48; silk 
industry in England, 49-51; 
industry in America, 51-58, 
138; England removes duties 
on American silk, 51, 52; the 
Revolution suspends the silk 
industry, 53; American silk 
inferior, 53 ; first mill in America 
at Mansfield, Conn., 54; mills at 
Paterson, N.J., 55, 210, 236; 
first successful dyeing in United 
States, 55; English weavers 
come to United States, 55; tariff 
of 1861, 55; "Mulberry Craze" 
checks industry, 58; raw silk 
used in United States imported, 
58; industry in Philadelphia, 
213. See also Ribbons. 

Silk machinery, that first used in 
England crude, 50; copied from 
Italian, 50. 

Silk throwing mill, first in Eng- 
land, 50. 

Silkworm, described, 44, 46; eggs 
brought from China, 48. 

Skinner, William, his silk industry, 
57. 

Slater, John, brings knowledge of 
English improvements in textile 
machines, 183; helps establish 
mill at Slatersville, 183. 

Slater, Samuel, early history, 168; 
emigrates secretly to America, 
169; finds employment in New 
York, 169; corresponds with 
Moses Brown, 169-170, 243; 
goes to Providence, 171; part- 
nership with Almy and Brown, 
171; constructs machines on 
Arkwright's models, 172; makes 
Earl's cards work, 172; starts 
mill at Pawtucket, 173; uses 
cotton warp, 173; reduces price 
of cloth, 174; payment and disci- 
pline of employees, 174; es- 
tablishes first Sunday-school, 



270 



INDEX 



174; markets for his yarns, 174- 
175, 176; rapidity of produc- 
tion, 175; Samuel Slater and 
Co. build mill at Rehoboth, 
Mass., 175; begins weaving 
cotton, 176; his influence on 
cotton industry, 179, 185, 222, 
233; erects first steam mill, 184; 
buys the Amoskeag Mill, 240. 

Slatersville, R.I., cotton mill, 183. 

Slaves exchanged for West Indian 
cotton and rum, 123, 127. 

Soapstone, used for rollers, 195. 

Social Manufacturing Company, 
Woonsocket, 246. 

Society for the Establishment of 
Useful Manufactures, founds 
Paterson, 233-234, 236. 

Somers, Thomas, petitions the 
Massachusetts legislature for aid, 
152; constructs textile machines, 
153; "The State Models," 153; 
employed at Beverly, 154, 156. 

South Africa, production of wool 
in 1909, 31. 

South Carolina, cultivation of cot- 
ton in, 41, 146; consumption of 
cotton, 43; silk industry, 52; 
first cotton mill, 188. 

Southern states, produce largest 
amount of cotton in the world, 
35; beginning and growth of 
its cotton crop, 41, 144-147, 
190; Sea Island cotton, 145- 
147; development of cotton 
manufacture in, 187-191; supply 
Fall River cotton mills, 225. 

Southwark, early bleachery there, 
112. 

Spear side, 73. 

Spider, silk-producing, 43-44. 

Spindle, found in ruins of Swiss 
Lake Dwellers, 15; used in 
Bronze Age, 16; of the Incas, 
19; description of, 71. 

Spinning, evidences of in pre- 
historic times, 13-16; traditions 
as to origin, 17; progress of art 
from East to West, 22; ma- 
chinery first used in Ireland, 
27; schools for in England, 27; 
Britons taught by Romans, 32; 



Angles and Saxons had knowl- 
edge of, 32; a by-product of 
farm life, 62; separated from 
agriculture, 64; spinners be- 
coming a separate class, 66; 
method of in early times, 71-72; 
construction of spinning wheel, 
72, 73; whole operation under 
one roof, 68, 81; Crompton's 
"mule" makes fine spinning 
possible, 85; statistics of, for 
1812, 87; introduction of ring 
spinning, 109; in American col- 
onies, 123; classes formed, 129, 
138; Boston spinning craze, 
135-137; bounties offered, 138. 
See Loom, Textile industry. 
Weaving. 

Spinning frame, invented by Ark- 
wright, 80-82; constructed at 
Providence, 161; constructed 
by Slater, 172. 

Spinning jenny, invented by James 
Hargreaves, 77-78; Christopher 
TuUy's, 140. 

Spinning wheel, history of, 72; 
value of in colonial times, 123. 

Spinster, 73. 

Sprague, William Peter, makes 
carpets, 216-217. 

Springfield, Mass., duck manu- 
facture, 161. 

Star Hosiery Mills, Amsterdam, 
245. 

Stark Mill, Manchester, N.H., 
241. 

"State Models, The," exhibited in 
Massachusetts, 153. 

Steam-engine, 60; first used for 
cotton manufacturing, 69; Cart- 
wright's improvements, 91; 
Watt's improvements, 99-100; 
first used in Fall River, 228. 

Stevens, Nathaniel, stockholder, 
219. 

Stockings, 49-50, 92; Queen Eliza- 
beth's silk stockings, 50, 94; 
invention of stocking machin- 
ery, 93-94; Strutt's mills at 
Derby, 95; the Ipswich Mills, 
95-96; industry at Germantown, 
Pa., 130, 212; woven at East 



INDEX 



271 



Greenwich, 162; industry in 
Connecticut, 181; hand stock- 
ing weaving, 212; made in Phil- 
adelphia, 214; industry at Am- 
sterdam, 245, 246. 

Stockport, Eng., steam looms used 
there, 107. 

Stop-motion, invented by Samuel 
Batchelder, 109. 

Storrow, Charles S., engineer of 
the Essex Company, 220, 221. 

Stratford, Mass., duck manufact- 
ure, 161. 

Straw, Ezekiel, engineer of the 
Amoskeag Mills, 240-241. 

Strutt, Jedediah, 81; invents 
ribbed stocking frame, 94; his 
stocking mills at Derby, 95; 
Slater his apprentice, 168. 

Sturgis, William, shareholder, 220; 
director of Essex Company, 221. 

SuflFolk Company, established, 209. 

Suffolk County Court Records, 
quoted, 123. 

Sulphuric acid, used in bleaching, 
113-114. 

Surnames, English, derived from 
the textile industry, 63. 

Swivel's loom, 74. 

Taft, Royal C, cited, 165. 
Tappa cloth, made from cloth tree 

by beating, 20. 
Tariff, of 1816, 197, 232; of 1861, 

55; ad valorem duty, 217. 
Taunton, Mass., the Whittenton 

Cotton Mills, 180-181. 
Taunton Speeder, invented by 

George Danforth, 109; used in 

England, 109. 
Teake, Richard, letter quoted, 146; 

first to raise cotton extensively 

in the South, 146. 
Tenant, Charles, his bleaching 

process, 115. 
Textile cities, in order of produc- 
tion, 210. 
Textile industry, in America, its 

history, 122; first settlers bring 

knowledge of from England, 122; 

climatic conditions and distance 

from England foster it, 122; 



colonial legislation aids it, 124- 
125, 128, 129, 132-133; first 
cloth mill at Rowley, Mass., 126; 
textile mills began in stone water 
mills, 123, 127; English efforts 
to hamper it, 128-129, 130; 
at the beginning of the Revolu- 
tion, 137-139; greatly devel- 
oped during the Revolution, 140; 
just before Slater, 167; statistics 
of, about 1812, 185; the great 
textile centres, 210-211; nature 
of the products, 211; amount 
and value of the output in 1909, 
211; its economic and social 
aspects, 248; statistics of growth, 
249. See Cotton, Silk, Spin- 
ning, Weaving, Wool. 

Textile machinery, era of inven- 
tion, 71-121; England prohibits 
its exportation, 139; Christopher 
TuUy's spinning jenny, 140; 
American efforts to secure Eng- 
lish machines, 141-142; made in 
Philadelphia, 215-216. 

Textiles, in prehistoric times, 13-16 ; 
found in barrows of Early Bret- 
ons, 16; among Cliff Dwellers 
of America, 16; among ancient 
Peruvians, 19; English products 
inferior, 33. See Cotton, Silk, 
Spinning, Weaving, Wool. 

Thorndike, Israel, 155. 

Thread, cotton, first made in 
America, 175. 

Throckmorton, Sir John, has a suit 
made on a wager, 100-101. 

Tiberius, Emperor, prohibits men 
from wearing silk, 47. 

Tiverton Print Works, 224. 

Toad, Mr., invents a loom, 106. 

Toby, Mr., of Lynn, gets bounty on 
cloth, 128. 

Trade-mark, first one, used at 
Beverly, 155. 

Tremont Company, established, 
209. 

"Trial," ship, brings cotton to 
Boston, 123. 

Troy Cotton and Woolen Manu- 
factory, 224-225; power looms 
installed, 226. 



272 



INDEX 



Troy Manufactory Company, 224- 

225. 
Tyler, Jonathan, stockholder, 219, 

220. 

Union Cotton Factory, Fall River, 
227. 

United Company of Philadelphia, 
etc., history of, 139-140, 148; 
first joint stock company, 215. 

United Kingdom, production of 
wool in 1909, 31. 

United States. See Textile in- 
dustry in America. 

Uruguay, production of wool in 
1909, 31. 

Vallentine, Edward, first success- 
ful silk dyer in United States, 
55. 

Vandausen, Herman, first calico 
printer in Rhode Island, 162, 231. 

Vaucanson, Jacques de, his au- 
tomatons furnish ideas to Jac- 
quard, 97. 

Virgil, cited, 47. 

Virginia, cultivation of cotton, 41; 
attempt to establish silk in- 
dustry there, 51, 53. 

Wadsworth, Jeremiah, stockholder 
of Hartford Woolen Manu- 
factory, 163; buys the busi- 
ness, 165. 

Wages in Slater's mill, 174; paid 
in money at Waltham, 196, 200; 
paid in merchandise, 199-200; 
in Col. Durfee's mill, 223; in 
other Fall River mills, 226; of 
the Amoskeag Company, 241; 
in New York, 244. 

Walcott, Benjamin S., builds cot- 
ton mill, 179. 

Walcott, Benjamin S., Jr., erects 
cotton mill in New York, 179. 

Waltham Company, establishes 
the first cotton mill run com- 
pletely by power, 192; incor- 
porated, 194; capital, l94 
Lowell's power loom, 194-195 
description of the mill, 194 
first cloth made, 194; textile 



machines invented by Moody 
and Lowell, 195; enterprise 
extended, 196; regular wages 
paid employees, 196, 200; mill 
boarding-houses, 196, 200; char- 
acter of employees, 196; sale 
of goods, 197; the Waltham 
system compared with the 
Rhode Island system, 198-200; 
children not employed, 200; 
success of, 200. 

Waltham System versus the Rhode 
Island System, 198-200. 

Wamsutta Mills, New Bedford, 
238-239. 

War of 1812, its effect upon the 
textile industry, 197, 200, 217. 

Ward, Benjamin C, and Co., sell- 
ing agents for Waltham Mills, 
197. 

Waring, Elijah, commission mer- 
chant, 175. 

Warp, supplied by employer, 67; 
warping mills established, 67; 
improved by Arkwright's in- 
ventions, 79, 82; of cotton, used 
at Pawtucket, 173; warper in- 
vented at Waltham, 195; cotton 
replaces linen, 227. 

Washington, George, brings spin- 
ners, weavers, and sheep from 
England, 30; visits the Beverly 
Cotton Manufactory, 157-158; 
describes the Boston Sail Cloth 
Factory, 160; inaugurated in 
suit of Hartford manufacture, 
163; letter quoted, 163-164; 
Washington Mill, Lawrence, 
221. 

Water frame, used in Arkwright's 
mill, 68; wide use of in. England, 
143. See Spinning frame. 

Water power, used for cotton mills, 
68; of New York mill, 244. 

Waterman, Rufus and Elisha, build 
cotton mill, 179. 

Watt, James, his steam-engine 
first used in cotton manufactur- 
ing, 69; his improvements upon 
Newcomen's steam-engine, 99- 
100; uses chlorine process for 
bleaching, 114. 



INDEX 



273 



Weaving, in prehistoric times, 14- 
16; traditions of its origin, 17, 
18; by Malays, 21; by hand 
weavers of India and China, 21 ; 
machinery first used in Ireland, 
27; immigrations of Flemish 
weavers to England, 33 ; weavers' 
guilds established, 33; a by- 
product of English farm life, 62; 
separated from agriculture, 64- 
65; women replaced by men, 67; 
legal terms, 73; Kay's improve- 
ments change method of, 75; 
among American colonists, 123, 
129, 133. See Cotton, Loom, 
Textile industry, Wool. 

Weft, made by weavers, 67. 

Wells, Obadiah, his linen manu- 
factory, 138. 

West Houghton, steam looms used 
there, 107. 

West Indies, exchange cotton and 
rum for slaves, 123, 127. 

Wetherill, Samuel, Jr., aids Ameri- 
can manufactures, 139-140; or- 
ganizes The Pennsylvania So- 
ciety for the Encouragement of 
Manufactures, 148 ; contracts 
to supply the army with woolens, 
215. 

"Whiting time," 112. 

Whitman, David, 237. 

Whitmarsh, Samuel, builds silk 
mill at Florence, Mass., 5Q. 

Whitney, Eli, sketch of his life 
and inventions, 101-105; his 
cotton gin, 101-105; his inven- 
tion stolen, 104; obtains a 
grant for his invention, 105; 
manufactures firearms, 105; 
marriage and death, 105. 

"Whitsters," 112. 

Whittemore, Amos, 215, 216. 

Whittenton Cotton Mills, Taun- 
ton, Mass., history of, 180-181. 

Wilkinson, David, builds power 
looms, 184. 

Wilkinson, Hannah, makes first 
cotton thread in America, 175. 

Wilkinson, Oziel, constructs 
Slater's machines, 172; forms 
partnership with Slater, 175. 



Wilkinson, William, forms part- 
nership with Slater, 175. 

William the Conqueror, 33, 39. 

Willowing, 67. 

Wilmington, Del., society organ- 
ized for the encouragement of 
American industries, 189-190; 
early cotton mill, 190. 

Winchcombe, John, his factory the 
first in England, 61. 

Winding machines, made by Silas 
Shepard, of Taunton, 196. 

Winthrop, John, Governor ofMassa- 
chtisetts, orders establishment of 
runs of stone, 125; his sons pro- 
mote trade with the West Indies, 
127. 

Winthrop, John, Jr., quoted, 
125. 

Wolcott, Oliver, stockholder, 
163. 

Women in industry. See Employ- 
ees, Wages. 

Wood Worsted Mill, Lawrence, 
largest in the world, 221. 

Wool, used in Stone Age, 14; fab- 
rics of found in ruins of Swiss 
Lake Dwellers, 15; woolen cloth 
in barrows of early Britons, 16, 
32; probably first material used 
for weaving, 16, 29; known to 
the Egyptians, 17; used by 
Incas, 19; manufacture highly 
developed in Flanders, 22; man- 
ufacture of in England, 23, 32- 
34 ; of animals other than sheep, 
29; grades of, 30-31; produc- 
tion of in sheep raising coun- 
tries in 1909, 31; manufactures 
of in America in 1909, 32; ex- 
portation of in England, 33, 34; 
sources of for New England col- 
onists, 123; first worsted mill 
established by John Cornish, 
130; production of in New Eng- 
land, 127-128, 133; nature of 
New England products, 135; 
finer grades brought from Eng- 
land, 138-139; manufacture of 
in Philadelphia, 212. See Sheep. 

Wool-combing machine, invented 
by Cartwright, 91. 



274 



INDEX 



Woonsocket, R.I., a textile centre, 
210; value of production, 211; 
fine water power, 246; Social 
Manufacturing Company formed 
for making cotton, 246; its mill 
and machinery, 246-247; other 
mills started, 247; character 
and value of output, 247. 

Worcester, Mass., early attempt 
at cotton manufacture, 151, 
160. 

Working classes. See Employees. 



Worsted, first mill built by John 

Cornish, 130. 
Worthen, Ezra, 200. 
Wrentham, Mass., Benjamin Shep- 

ard's cotton mill, 177-178. 
Wyatt, John, 73; his inventions, 

77. 

Yarn, how made in Peru, 19; 

best comes from Holland, 28; 

made from cotton, 82. See 
Spinning. 



ERRATA 

Page 16. For Bretons read Britons. 

Page 73. For James Crompton read Samuel Crompton. 

Page 162. For McKerris read McKerries. 

Page 231. For Henry Vandausen read Herman Vandausen. 



DEC 26 1912 








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